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Frazzled wrote:

WarOne wrote:

Frazzled wrote:All of western Europe
North Africa
Germany
Japan
South Korea
Bosnia
Kosovo

And keep in mind to that alot of these places there is joint occupational history with other organizations, whether it is the UN or the Allies.

Allies and UN at best irrelevant, at worst a hindrance.

It was a joint effort in the Balkans, Germany post WWII and South Korea following the Korean War.

It is solidarity with the rest of the allies America has that is key.

WarOne wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

WarOne wrote:

Frazzled wrote:All of western Europe
North Africa
Germany
Japan
South Korea
Bosnia
Kosovo

And keep in mind to that alot of these places there is joint occupational history with other organizations, whether it is the UN or the Allies.

Allies and UN at best irrelevant, at worst a hindrance.

It was a joint effort in the Balkans, Germany post WWII and South Korea following the Korean War.

It is solidarity with the rest of the allies America has that is key.

It was US nukes and forces that kept the Russians out.
Its US troops in South Korea now.
Kosovo would not have happened without the US airpower. Don't kid yourself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Besides, who cares? Historically, we kept the peace by keeping the terrritories or just obliterating them and leaving. We should return to that.

Frazzled wrote:
It was US nukes and forces that kept the Russians out.

Actually, it was a combined effort. The Soviets were conventionally superior to the US until the mid-70's. Prior to that it would have taken the combined force of Britain, France, and the US to halt a Soviet armored push.

As for nuclear deterrent: Britain possessed nuclear weapons following 1952, and France following 1960.

Frazzled wrote:
Kosovo would not have happened without the US airpower. Don't kid yourself.

Or NATO ground forces, most of which were provided by other nations.

Frazzled wrote:
Besides, who cares? Historically, we kept the peace by keeping the terrritories or just obliterating them and leaving. We should return to that.

It hasn't worked like that since the 30 Years War.

dogma wrote:It hasn't worked like that since the 30 Years War.

I would go see a specialist about this problem.

Henry Kissinger works. He's been around that long.

Frazzled wrote:
Bosnia

The US 'brought the rain' and the UN followed through, which means the US did virtually nothing because we don't contribute significantly to NATO missions.

Frazzled wrote:
Kosovo

The US 'brought the rain' and contributed relatively little to the followup.

ShumaGorath wrote:

SlaveToDorkness wrote:

Phryxis wrote:
It's a shame that people like to blame "our" decisions on Bush.

They blamed the fething weather on him... of course Iraq was all his fault.

It's as if he orchestrated, pushed, then ran into the ground the entire war! Come on, this is some of the lamest trolling I've ever seen, to pretend that iraq wasn't a war all of Bush and Rumsfelds making is simply putting your head in the fething sand.

There was an awful lot of bi-partisan support, man.

I think it's more oblivious to act like the Democrats didn't vote to go to war as well.

Whoever voted for it, it was still a bad decision.

Kilkrazy wrote:Whoever voted for it, it was still a bad decision.

I still can't make up my mind about whether or not it was a bad decision originally. I mean the Husseins we pretty bad guys. That said, the way the war has been handled since the invasion has been absolute foolishness.

CrashUSAR wrote:

LunaHound wrote:Seems like not many people that posted in the thread give a damn about the Iraq civilians.

Why is that?

Because they(Iraqi citizens) don't give a damn about themselves.

Oh care to explain that a bit more? So the Iraqis don`t give a damn that their country is in ruins due to a certain nations fondness, for bombing other countrys to ruins and then leave? And that said mess is also a mix of VERY complex factors?

Anshal wrote:

CrashUSAR wrote:

LunaHound wrote:Seems like not many people that posted in the thread give a damn about the Iraq civilians.

Why is that?

Because they(Iraqi citizens) don't give a damn about themselves.

Oh care to explain that a bit more? So the Iraqis don`t give a damn that their country is in ruins due to a certain nations fondness, for bombing other countrys to ruins and then leave? And that said mess is also a mix of VERY complex factors?

Actually its their fondness for blowing each other up, thats done that.

Frazzled wrote:

Anshal wrote:

CrashUSAR wrote:

LunaHound wrote:Seems like not many people that posted in the thread give a damn about the Iraq civilians.

Why is that?

Because they(Iraqi citizens) don't give a damn about themselves.

Oh care to explain that a bit more? So the Iraqis don`t give a damn that their country is in ruins due to a certain nations fondness, for bombing other countrys to ruins and then leave? And that said mess is also a mix of VERY complex factors?

Actually its their fondness for blowing each other up, thats done that.

I thought most of the insurgents were from Iran?


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Monster Rain wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Whoever voted for it, it was still a bad decision.

I still can't make up my mind about whether or not it was a bad decision originally. I mean the Husseins we pretty bad guys. That said, the way the war has been handled since the invasion has been absolute foolishness.

Reasons for going to war with Iraq.

1. The Husseins are bad guys.
They were in the 80s when we supported them. They were at the end of the first Gulf War when we flubbed the opportunity to get rid of them. There are lots of other bad guys around. National sovereignty.

2. WMDs.
No, actually. The evidence was very thin.

3. Stop Al Qaeda and terrorism generally.
No. There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq until we invaded. Saddam did not sponsor state terrorism.

Other factors.
Overstretch while we were still engaged in Afghanistan. This has not turned out well so far either.

Come on, this is some of the lamest trolling I've ever seen, to pretend that iraq wasn't a war all of Bush and Rumsfelds making is simply putting your head in the fething sand.

Right, cause the "wise" and "enlightened" view would be to assume that a nation of 300 million, plus various European states, were all "tricked" into going to war in Iraq, by a guy who I'm sure you constantly refer to as "stupid."

We were all "tricked" by an "idiot."

That's your story? Sure, you go with that.

If you want America to take responsibility, then America needs to take responsibility. Not George W. Bush.

There were no ties between 9/11 and Iraq

Define "ties." Did Saddam fund the hijackers, train them, etc. etc.? No, not at all. Was the situation in Iraq cited repeatedly by AQ as a reason for their action? Yes. The US was sitting in Saudi Arabia with a bunch of soldiers and planes, and was basically waging a long running, low grade air war on Iraq. Meanwhile, sanctions were in place making life hard for Iraqis, and harder because Saddam used the sanctions as a club/excuse to kill off dissidents.

This was an unteneble solution. The decision to "finish" the "Iraq problem" after 9/11 follows very directly. It was certainly not inevitable, but it was logical enough that it garnered widespread support.

In the wake of 9/11 the President was claiming that Saddam had WMDs and represented a real threat to the world, and people followed.

I have never believed that this argument carried much weight with actual decisionmakers who are thinking in geopolitical terms. The WMD issue was a (poorly chosen) appeal to the populace, designed to portray a clear and present danger. The "nationbuilding" project was the real core motivation to Bush's policy, and I think that was understood by leadership here and in Europe.

This is by no means a defence of Saddam, he was a bastard, but the idea that loads of people would have died in the 2000s with Saddam at the helm is not true.

I think it absolutely is true, but perhaps not via direct action. As you point out, Saddam had periods of martial crackdown, where his soldiers would go and slaughter large sections of populace. This happened after the first Gulf War as the population thought they might be able to get rid of him. And, of course, there was the constant low level of killing that all dictatorships rely on.

However, the sanctions were another story. I think the numbers are inflated, but many people claim that millions of Iraqi children were dying due to the sanctions. I think that's high, and I think a lot of it was Saddam manipulating things to kill off dissident populations, thus getting the PR victim benefit AND getting rid of opponents, but the fact remains that there was some level of death going on due to sanctions.

The only options there were to remove the sanctions, thus destroying the credibility of sanctions as a negotiating tool for all future situations, or to remove Saddam directly. The latter choice was a fairly direct and logical continuation of AMERICAN foreign policy.

Invasions based around grand visions will get loads of people killed and achieve little, whether the intent is altruistic or not.

We're still in the very near term. People tend to forget how bad things were, and geopolitics are carried out over decades. We absolutely destroyed Japan and Germany, and they're in a better place now. That's not to say that Iraq WILL be the same, that's just to say that it can be.

I think what you're identifying is not that grand visions don't work, because sometimes they do. What grand visions fail to do is to live up to the promises that got them funded. Iraq isn't roses and peace marches, clearly. That doesn't make it a failure, and that doesn't mean that in 20 years it won't look better in hindsight.

Frazzled wrote:Actually its their fondness for blowing each other up, thats done that.

This is my favourite thing ever.

'We're great at policing, look at all those places we've policed that went fine.'
'What about the ones where it didn't go so well?'
'That wasn't our fault. The people there did violent stuff - it was there fault.'
'But isn't policing all about stopping people who want to do bad things?'
'USA! USA! USA!'

You might consider your comments Sebster. If we hadn't gone for a police action, you'd be speaking Japanese.

You didn't go for a police action. You waited until the Japanese and Germans started a war.

Kilkrazy wrote:You didn't go for a police action. You waited until the Japanese and Germans started a war.

Thats a police action. Plus you forget the embargo we put in place on Japan prior to the war which directly caused Pearl Harbor/invasion of SE Asia.

Right, cause the "wise" and "enlightened" view would be to assume that a nation of 300 million, plus various European states, were all "tricked" into going to war in Iraq, by a guy who I'm sure you constantly refer to as "stupid."

We were all "tricked" by an "idiot."

That's your story? Sure, you go with that.

If you want America to take responsibility, then America needs to take responsibility. Not George W. Bush.

Blame where blame is deserved, but all is not equal. Despite bi partisan support it was the bush administrations decision to invade and their shady dealings that generated spurious (and later know to be false) evidence. The American people were tricked by an administration that picked and chose which reports to convey to the people and which to trump and embellish. The rest of our government should not have gone along with it, but this was not an even deal. This was a man telling us of a bomb at our back door and the rest of the government believing him. Iraq is one of the greatest policy mistakes of our generation, and it's handling early by a team of political loyalists, it's civilian staffing with political loyalists, and the silencing of early opposition even from knowledgeable people in the field speaks very strongly of a level of failure that should be unconchinable in a president. Thats the exact kind of thing you impeach people for, and it speaks mountains of Americas inability to come to terms with it's own ability to make mistakes that half a decade later it still didn't have the stomach to follow it's own laws. I don't think Bush is a special idiot, but I generally think that the American public is somewhat dim and easily led astray by bright lights cheery smiles and an "enemy" to shake our fists at, and he wanted to finish his daddies war.

Phryxis wrote:Right, cause the "wise" and "enlightened" view would be to assume that a nation of 300 million, plus various European states, were all "tricked" into going to war in Iraq, by a guy who I'm sure you constantly refer to as "stupid."

Being politically skilled does not make one wise in the ways of world affairs. Bush was perhaps the most extreme example we've seen of this, but he isn't the only case, and he certainly won't be the last.

And most people didn't take much to be tricked, not when there's a desire for some kind of revenge post 911.

And I'd be surprised if any countries were tricked into following Iraq. I know here at home there was little if any belief in the WMD stories, we had a whistleblower from our intelligence services come out and state exactly that. Government trashed him and carried on supporting the invasion anyway. Having a sensible reason to invade was a lot less important than maintaining goodwill with the US, because if we aren't the US' deputy in the pacific, we aren't anything. I suspect other nations of the willing made similar judgements.

If you want America to take responsibility, then America needs to take responsibility. Not George W. Bush.

It isn't about responsibility or blame. It's about understanding power dynamics and how people with strict control on information can frame a debate.

Define "ties." Did Saddam fund the hijackers, train them, etc. etc.? No, not at all. Was the situation in Iraq cited repeatedly by AQ as a reason for their action? Yes. The US was sitting in Saudi Arabia with a bunch of soldiers and planes, and was basically waging a long running, low grade air war on Iraq. Meanwhile, sanctions were in place making life hard for Iraqis, and harder because Saddam used the sanctions as a club/excuse to kill off dissidents.

I would define that as 'not ties'. Being one of dozens of things AQ was pissed off about doesn't really make much of a case for invading Iraq.

I have never believed that this argument carried much weight with actual decisionmakers who are thinking in geopolitical terms. The WMD issue was a (poorly chosen) appeal to the populace, designed to portray a clear and present danger. The "nationbuilding" project was the real core motivation to Bush's policy, and I think that was understood by leadership here and in Europe.

It absolutely was, and it's why people protested so much. It's really bad idea to go about invading other people's countries because you believe that if you can just knock over their government then a new, free and prosperous society will emerge. As we've just seen.

However, the sanctions were another story. I think the numbers are inflated, but many people claim that millions of Iraqi children were dying due to the sanctions. I think that's high, and I think a lot of it was Saddam manipulating things to kill off dissident populations, thus getting the PR victim benefit AND getting rid of opponents, but the fact remains that there was some level of death going on due to sanctions.

The figures weren't just high, they were ludicrous. Basically a stat was taken from a single outbreak of, if I recall correctly it was cholera, at a children's hospital. Some people protesting the sanctions took that figure and multiplied it by the total population, ignoring that that hospital had a much higher than average number of children because it was a children's hospital, but more importantly ignored that it was specific, short-term outbreak. They then assumed that rate of death was happening across the country, in every year of the sanctions, to come up with 500,000 dead children.

They then took that figure and challenged Madelaine Albright with it, and she famously said she thought the sanctions were worth that cost. Suddenly the figure had legitimacy, despite being completely made up.

The only options there were to remove the sanctions, thus destroying the credibility of sanctions as a negotiating tool for all future situations, or to remove Saddam directly. The latter choice was a fairly direct and logical continuation of AMERICAN foreign policy.

We have sanctions on Iran right now. At some point they'll result in a shortage that'll get somebody killed. When do we invade?

We're still in the very near term. People tend to forget how bad things were, and geopolitics are carried out over decades. We absolutely destroyed Japan and Germany, and they're in a better place now. That's not to say that Iraq WILL be the same, that's just to say that it can be.

I think what you're identifying is not that grand visions don't work, because sometimes they do. What grand visions fail to do is to live up to the promises that got them funded. Iraq isn't roses and peace marches, clearly. That doesn't make it a failure, and that doesn't mean that in 20 years it won't look better in hindsight.

Grand vision might not be the best term, as a grand vision can be broad guideline to reaching some future goal, and many grand visions can be very sensible, and have worked.

What I'm talking about as stupid and doomed to failure are these geo-political gambits, where a big idea is formed, then countries are squeezed into it to make it work. When those kinds of plans meet with reality all the assumptions made to keep the model working are shown up and then the model falls apart. That's basically what happened in Iraq, the big idea of Iraq accepting the US as conquerors, allowing an easy transition and a rapid transformation to a better society didn't happen. The rest of the Middle East didn't suddenly fall in love with US style democracy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:You might consider your comments Sebster. If we hadn't gone for a police action, you'd be speaking Japanese.

You're claiming the Japanese had the capability or the will to occupy Australia? That's just odd.

Meanwhile, I'm certainly not denying the value of the US in defeating the Japanese, it was a great and incredible thing that you guys did. I'm laughing at how a guy can celebrate the successful police actions of his country, but ignore any instance where they fail to police properly.

By that logic, every policemen ever has been completely awesome. Why even that sheriff that has a man in his town shot everyday is awesome, it's just the population that's unruly.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Right, cause the "wise" and "enlightened" view would be to assume that a nation of 300 million, plus various European states, were all "tricked" into going to war in Iraq, by a guy who I'm sure you constantly refer to as "stupid."

We were all "tricked" by an "idiot."

That's your story? Sure, you go with that.

If you want America to take responsibility, then America needs to take responsibility. Not George W. Bush.

Blame where blame is deserved, but all is not equal. Despite bi partisan support it was the bush administrations decision to invade and their shady dealings that generated spurious (and later know to be false) evidence. The American people were tricked by an administration that picked and chose which reports to convey to the people and which to trump and embellish. The rest of our government should not have gone along with it, but this was not an even deal. This was a man telling us of a bomb at our back door and the rest of the government believing him. Iraq is one of the greatest policy mistakes of our generation, and it's handling early by a team of political loyalists, it's civilian staffing with political loyalists, and the silencing of early opposition even from knowledgeable people in the field speaks very strongly of a level of failure that should be unconchinable in a president. Thats the exact kind of thing you impeach people for, and it speaks mountains of Americas inability to come to terms with it's own ability to make mistakes that half a decade later it still didn't have the stomach to follow it's own laws. I don't think Bush is a special idiot, but I generally think that the American public is somewhat dim and easily led astray by bright lights cheery smiles and an "enemy" to shake our fists at, and he wanted to finish his daddies war.

Standard Huffington Post nonsense and a convenient excuse. Bill Clinton had been bombing them for years because they kept lighting up and shooting at our aircraft-which was an immediate restart of hostilities.

The excuse stinks of Obama whining like a little boy that everything's someone else's fault.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Right, cause the "wise" and "enlightened" view would be to assume that a nation of 300 million, plus various European states, were all "tricked" into going to war in Iraq, by a guy who I'm sure you constantly refer to as "stupid."

We were all "tricked" by an "idiot."

That's your story? Sure, you go with that.

If you want America to take responsibility, then America needs to take responsibility. Not George W. Bush.

Blame where blame is deserved, but all is not equal. Despite bi partisan support it was the bush administrations decision to invade and their shady dealings that generated spurious (and later know to be false) evidence.

That is such a cop-out, Shuma.

If Congress hadn't voted to go, overwhelmingly I might add, the war wouldn't have happened.

While getting Saddam Hussein out of power was a decent goal...the aftermath and the reasons for invading turned out to be pretty gakky. I like referencing the pictures of soldiers wearing woodlands camo kevlar on top of their desert BDU's as an example of how ill prepared the US and its allies were for such actions.

As for "police actions" and holding a country after invading it...seems like no country's great at it. Allied forces are great at logistics and the conventional warfare stuff like flying across the world and bombing a country that citizens would struggle to locate on a map...but that stuff's easy compared to trying to force change on a people.

Hell, allied nations can't even get the Japanese to stop their arguably senseless dolphin and whale slaughters...good luck trying to change values and beliefs that go much deeper than maritime traditions!

Frazzled wrote: If we hadn't gone for a police action, you'd be speaking Japanese.

Just like no one in Germany speaks German anymore then.

Sebster's Aussie.

Sebster's Aussie.

Frazzled wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Right, cause the "wise" and "enlightened" view would be to assume that a nation of 300 million, plus various European states, were all "tricked" into going to war in Iraq, by a guy who I'm sure you constantly refer to as "stupid."

We were all "tricked" by an "idiot."

That's your story? Sure, you go with that.

If you want America to take responsibility, then America needs to take responsibility. Not George W. Bush.

Blame where blame is deserved, but all is not equal. Despite bi partisan support it was the bush administrations decision to invade and their shady dealings that generated spurious (and later know to be false) evidence. The American people were tricked by an administration that picked and chose which reports to convey to the people and which to trump and embellish. The rest of our government should not have gone along with it, but this was not an even deal. This was a man telling us of a bomb at our back door and the rest of the government believing him. Iraq is one of the greatest policy mistakes of our generation, and it's handling early by a team of political loyalists, it's civilian staffing with political loyalists, and the silencing of early opposition even from knowledgeable people in the field speaks very strongly of a level of failure that should be unconchinable in a president. Thats the exact kind of thing you impeach people for, and it speaks mountains of Americas inability to come to terms with it's own ability to make mistakes that half a decade later it still didn't have the stomach to follow it's own laws. I don't think Bush is a special idiot, but I generally think that the American public is somewhat dim and easily led astray by bright lights cheery smiles and an "enemy" to shake our fists at, and he wanted to finish his daddies war.

Standard Huffington Post nonsense and a convenient excuse. Bill Clinton had been bombing them for years because they kept lighting up and shooting at our aircraft-which was an immediate restart of hostilities.

The excuse stinks of Obama whining like a little boy that everything's someone else's fault.

Says the man that is on record repeatedly as wanting to nuke the country and kill everyone in it.

That is such a cop-out, Shuma.

If Congress hadn't voted to go, overwhelmingly I might add, the war wouldn't have happened.

And if the administration had not brought it before congress with false evidence creating a fake picture of a made up country we probably wouldn't have gone in. Congress exists to rubber stamp or revise things, they rubber stamped the war as it was presented to them and us. They were lied too, in some cases knowingly as was the American populace at large. After that it continues to be bushes war, the commander in chief is the highest military and civilian posting in the land. He and his direct team made many decisions that cost a lot of money, lives, time, and prestige. He repeatedly rebuked the constitution and international law and he staffed the civilian wing of the force sent into iraq with his own party loyalists. This isn't a cop out, this is you not understanding the position of a president in wartime. The economic collapse wasn't really his fault. Katrina wasn't something he magicked the sky into doing. Iraq was something he and his administration spent months preparing to present to congress as an urgent action and he then spent years running the effort into the ground through mismanagement.

Frazzled wrote:Sebster's Aussie.

Yes..it's come up once or twice, he rises above the near constant cracks about deportation of prisoners like..like... like a person from a really fat nation on a ...hmm.. they overtook them..? ..bugger...anyway...

Point was more this somewhat odd idea that "conquered" nations are suddenly forced to start speaking the tongue of their conquerors. That doesn't really happen, especially in the modern age.

Unless you conquer them in insidious means : with things like music, films, fast food etc etc.

..that said... you'll never take our extra letters from our "through", despite your spelling being sensible !

ShumaGorath wrote:

That is such a cop-out, Shuma.

If Congress hadn't voted to go, overwhelmingly I might add, the war wouldn't have happened.

And if the administration had not brought it before congress with false evidence creating a fake picture of a made up country we probably wouldn't have gone in. Congress exists to rubber stamp or revise things, they rubber stamped the war as it was presented to them and us. They were lied too, in some cases knowingly as was the American populace at large. After that it continues to be bushes war, the commander in chief is the highest military and civilian posting in the land. He and his direct team made many decisions that cost a lot of money, lives, time, and prestige. He repeatedly rebuked the constitution and international law and he staffed the civilian wing of the force sent into iraq with his own party loyalists. This isn't a cop out, this is you not understanding the position of a president in wartime. The economic collapse wasn't really his fault. Katrina wasn't something he magicked the sky into doing. Iraq was something he and his administration spent months preparing to present to congress as an urgent action and he then spent years running the effort into the ground through mismanagement.

Huh?

I'm pretty sure that one of the things I learned in middle school civics is that the Congress is one of the checks and balances of Presidential power. Who doesn't understand what, now? "Congress exists to rubber stamp or revise things"? Did you type that with a straight face?

I'm sure that all of those back-pedaling opportunists are also using the same cop-out spin tactic, but the truth is that they voted for it. Not that your premise is even all that sound, since we can't know whether or not the Administration knowingly lied about anything.

I don't like how the war has gone over the last few years either, but let's keep it real in here for a minute.

Huh?

I'm pretty sure that one of the things I learned in middle school civics is that the Congress is one of the checks and balances of Presidential power.

Kind of like how they were consulted for wiretapping? For illegal extradition? For offshore internent camps? For military actions across the pakistani border? The congress acts as a check and balance for most non wartime activities, one of the things Bush and his administration was known for is the belief that the president has carte blanche to do whatever he deems necessary to protect the country during wartime without congressional or court approval. It constantly provoked the ire of constitutionalists and the courts.

Who doesn't understand what, now? "Congress exists to rubber stamp or revise things"? Did you type that with a straight face?

Yes, because thats what they do. They receive documents that they either aprove, deny, or revise. Thats how they perform their "checks and balances". They also perform inquiries, investigations, and write a lot of requests but those actions can be blocked by the commander in chief (and were for most of the war). I'm sorry if they didn't actually teach you very much in middle school, don't worry, once you get into high school you start learning the good stuff.

I'm sure that all of those back-pedaling opportunists are also using the same cop-out spin tactic, but the truth is that they voted for it. Not that your premise is even all that sound, since we can't know whether or not the Administration knowingly lied about anything.

Yes, we can.

"In the initial stages of the war on terror, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), under George Tenet, was rising to prominence as the lead agency in the Afghanistan war. But when Tenet insisted in his personal meetings with President Bush that there was no connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld initiated a secret program to reexamine the evidence and marginalize the CIA and Tenet. A major part of this program was a Pentagon unit known as the Office of Special Plans (OSP), created by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and headed by Douglas Feith to supply senior Bush administration officials with raw intelligence pertaining to Iraq, unvetted by intelligence analysts, and circumventing traditional intelligence gathering operations by the CIA. The questionable intelligence acquired by the OSP was "stovepiped" to Cheney and presented to the public."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/etc/script.html

At this point there are probably a few dozen books you could read about it.

But I don't think you will.

I don't like how the war has gone over the last few years either, but let's keep it real in here for a minute.

Thats all on you broderbun.

ShumaGorath wrote:"In the initial stages of the war on terror, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), under George Tenet, was rising to prominence as the lead agency in the Afghanistan war. But when Tenet insisted in his personal meetings with President Bush that there was no connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld initiated a secret program to reexamine the evidence and marginalize the CIA and Tenet. A major part of this program was a Pentagon unit known as the Office of Special Plans (OSP), created by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and headed by Douglas Feith to supply senior Bush administration officials with raw intelligence pertaining to Iraq, unvetted by intelligence analysts, and circumventing traditional intelligence gathering operations by the CIA. The questionable intelligence acquired by the OSP was "stovepiped" to Cheney and presented to the public."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/etc/script.html

At this point there are probably a few dozen books you could read about it.

But I don't think you will.

I know that you're at least smart enough to know that for every "I hate Dubya" book you pull out of your ass there's another book out there that would say the exact opposite.

brohemoth.

Monster Rain wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

SlaveToDorkness wrote:

Phryxis wrote:
It's a shame that people like to blame "our" decisions on Bush.

They blamed the fething weather on him... of course Iraq was all his fault.

It's as if he orchestrated, pushed, then ran into the ground the entire war! Come on, this is some of the lamest trolling I've ever seen, to pretend that iraq wasn't a war all of Bush and Rumsfelds making is simply putting your head in the fething sand.

There was an awful lot of bi-partisan support, man.

I think it's more oblivious to act like the Democrats didn't vote to go to war as well.

Politicians with something to gain (political and/or financial) went along with the war, be they democrat, republican, whatever...

So yes, your right greed, self-centered grand standing and shot-sighted flag waving is not limited to any one party...