I Have To Wonder

[xrayzebra]

You know I read all the things posted on here about Bush lied and the
war was wrong in VN and on and on and on.

And I have to wonder. With all our military power, could we ever win
another war? Do the American people have the inner strength to sustain
a war. Are we so taken up with ourselves and our lives that we just
don't want to defend any of our hopes, dreams and real freedoms.

We have had a group of thugs or religious nuts, terrorists, that attacked
our nation on 9/11, not the first by the way, and not just one place,
but three and an unknown fourth site. And a good portion of our country
wants to treat it as isolated incidents, attack our own President and
give all the freedom in the world to those that want to take yours away.
Can anyone tell me how this makes sense? They say we are protecting
our freedoms by granting them rights which they do not have or ever
have had under our constitution or laws.

Why is that? I honestly cannot figure that out.

Our President, our previous President. Most of our Congress and many
other world leaders repeatedly said Saddam had WMD. We know he
had WMD because he used it on his own people several times and also
against Iran. We also know that Wilson lied in his report, he was
attempting to obtain yellow cake. Now some of the the Presidents
political opponents, who loudly proclaimed Saddam had WMD now say
well, if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn't have supported
the war. Holy smokes, if a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass,
would he? Our President, along with our Congress acted on the best
information we had at the time. And every damn person on this board
thought Saddam had WMD. NYT and every other damn paper in the
United States and the world told us so. And every damn one of us
suspected and were more than likely were correct, when we thought
Saddam was supporting terrorism.

Yes, I know Germany and France wouldn't support us. Hey, hello, heard
of the food for oil program, which both of those countries were up to
their eyebrows in corrupt programs involving the oil for food programs.
By the way, France, the great champion of the downtrodden and
defender of human rights, aren't they the same ones who passed laws
telling the Muslims what they can wear and display?


But I digress, I just wonder what it would take for this country, as one,
to really want to fight and win a war. Three thousand souls obviously
wont do it. Destroying multi-billion dollar property wont do it.
Destroying our embassies wont do it. Attacking our ships and killing
our sailors wont do it. Why are we so dead set on losing a war because
we dislike (or should I say hate) a President.

Can anyone tell me?

[clambake]

It's because they made-up the info. Yellow cake was complete fabrication. Saddam used the wmd's we gave him. Pres. is shamelessly dishonest. Cheney and rove are from the bowels of hell.

Merry Christmas Ray, hope you have a great holiday!

[Extra Stout]

Almsot everybody supported attacking the country which harbored the guy who ordered the attacks that killed 3000 people, destroyed multi-billion-dollar property, embassies, and ships. That country was Afghanistan.

[velik_m]

By the way, France, the great champion of the downtrodden and
defender of human rights, aren't they the same ones who passed laws
telling the Muslims what they can wear and display?


in schools.

I don't want to go of topic, i just thought it's worth pointing it out, so some uninformed people don't make false assumptions.

ON TOPIC:
I belive if there is one time that goverment needs to be quetioned and doubted, it's the time of war. Really, who really cares if the gov adds some tax on coffee or something, or makes new useless law, or decides this or that in peace time. War is compared to other regular governing in a completly different ballpark. Each decision litterally means a decision between lifes or deaths. It is this time that people should involve themselfs most with goverment actions and decisions, not least. Each decision should be questioned and revived and assessed and, if wrong, pointed out and corrected.

I hope that made sense.

[2centsworth]

You know I read all the things posted on here about Bush lied and the
war was wrong in VN and on and on and on.

And I have to wonder. With all our military power, could we ever win
another war? Do the American people have the inner strength to sustain
a war. Are we so taken up with ourselves and our lives that we just
don't want to defend any of our hopes, dreams and real freedoms.

We have had a group of thugs or religious nuts, terrorists, that attacked
our nation on 9/11, not the first by the way, and not just one place,
but three and an unknown fourth site. And a good portion of our country
wants to treat it as isolated incidents, attack our own President and
give all the freedom in the world to those that want to take yours away.
Can anyone tell me how this makes sense? They say we are protecting
our freedoms by granting them rights which they do not have or ever
have had under our constitution or laws.

Why is that? I honestly cannot figure that out.

Our President, our previous President. Most of our Congress and many
other world leaders repeatedly said Saddam had WMD. We know he
had WMD because he used it on his own people several times and also
against Iran. We also know that Wilson lied in his report, he was
attempting to obtain yellow cake. Now some of the the Presidents
political opponents, who loudly proclaimed Saddam had WMD now say
well, if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn't have supported
the war. Holy smokes, if a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass,
would he? Our President, along with our Congress acted on the best
information we had at the time. And every damn person on this board
thought Saddam had WMD. NYT and every other damn paper in the
United States and the world told us so. And every damn one of us
suspected and were more than likely were correct, when we thought
Saddam was supporting terrorism.

Yes, I know Germany and France wouldn't support us. Hey, hello, heard
of the food for oil program, which both of those countries were up to
their eyebrows in corrupt programs involving the oil for food programs.
By the way, France, the great champion of the downtrodden and
defender of human rights, aren't they the same ones who passed laws
telling the Muslims what they can wear and display?


But I digress, I just wonder what it would take for this country, as one,
to really want to fight and win a war. Three thousand souls obviously
wont do it. Destroying multi-billion dollar property wont do it.
Destroying our embassies wont do it. Attacking our ships and killing
our sailors wont do it. Why are we so dead set on losing a war because
we dislike (or should I say hate) a President.

Can anyone tell me?

The goal was to establish a democracy in the middle east as a shining example of the benefits of freedom.

Our President, who is the leader and ultimately responsible, did not take into account the hardcore factions that exist in Iraq. Democracy requires a sense of nationalistic pride from it's people. However, most people in Iraq don't see themselves as Iraqis but see themselves as either Sunni, Shite, or Kurd.

It's like trying to combine the USA, Cananda, and Mexico into one government.

Of course I read about the problems presented in Iraq before the war was waged. It's obvious our president isn't well read.

The whole the President lied or he's hitler rants are ridiculous, but he's still ultimately responsible for what happens.

[Extra Stout]

The President had good intentions, but you know what they say about that.

Cheney's "Oilfinger" initiative worked out OK for him, though.

[ChumpDumper]

X still thinks Saddam was behind 9/11.

[xrayzebra]

I would like everyone of you read the above post. Has
anyone answer the question I posed? No!

What would it take to make American's win a war. What?

Most of you have given your reasons for not supporting
this war. Except you ignore facts. But to go into that
would be going off topic.

[xrayzebra]

It's because they made-up the info. Yellow cake was complete fabrication. Saddam used the wmd's we gave him. Pres. is shamelessly dishonest. Cheney and rove are from the bowels of hell.

Merry Christmas Ray, hope you have a great holiday!

Posted without comment.

New Iraqi Documents show Bush didn't Lie (Yellow Cake in Africa
Newsmax ^



New Iraqi Documents Show Bush Didn't 'Lie'

Newly translated Iraqi documents from Saddam Hussein's regime show that President Bush was factually accurate when he told the nation in his 2003 State of the Union Address that Iraq had recently sought uranium from Africa.

Bush's 16-word statement had formed the basis for the claim adopted by administration critics that "Bush lied" about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.

But according to the Washington Times today, an unnamed U.S. official reports that "newly translated Iraqi documents . . . tell of Saddam seeking uranium from Africa in the mid-1990s."

The documents also speak of burying prohibited missiles, a government official familiar with the declassification process told the paper.

In his January 2003 address, Bush told the nation:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The statement prompted former ambassador to Iraq, Joseph Wilson to complain to the New York Times seven months later: "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

The new documents strongly suggest, however, that Wilson was wrong - and that the "Bush lied" mantra adopted by most Democrats since Wilson first made his complaint has been based on bogus information.

Confirmation on African uranium claim offered by Iraqi documents may be just the tip of the iceberg.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Peter Hoekstra told the Washington Times that about 500 hours of Saddam audiotape is still being translated and analyzed by the U.S.

And U.S. Central Command has 48,000 boxes of Iraqi documents, of which the military has delivered just 68 pages to his committee so far.

"I don't want to overstate what is in the documents," Hoekstra told the paper. "[But] I certainly want to get them out because I think people are going to find them very interesting."

[ChumpDumper]

Haven't heard about that in nine months. You think the administration would still be making a big deal out of all this.

[ChumpDumper]

What would it take to make American's win a war. What?A cause worth real sacrifice. Hunches and grudges regarding Iraq didn't cut it.

[clambake]

mid 90's. geez ray. i think i was looking for enriched uranium in the mid 90's.

Chump said it best, a worthy sacrifice.

[Extra Stout]

I would like everyone of you read the above post. Has
anyone answer the question I posed? No!

What would it take to make American's win a war. What?

Most of you have given your reasons for not supporting
this war. Except you ignore facts. But to go into that
would be going off topic.
First of all, your premise is flawed, which makes it difficult to answer your question directly.

You start off talking about 9/11 and then go off talking about Saddam and WMD's.

The best I can tell, you are talking about the lack of support for the war in Iraq, and saying that if the 9/11 attacks won't motivate the American people to support the war, then what will?

What people are trying to tell you is that the reason that 9/11 doesn't cause a lot of people to support the war in Iraq is that there is no factual evidence that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. At this point, you might feel like waltzing off into loose insinuations that you can't back up, about how you know Iraq had something to do with it, because you're old, and have been around the block, and can sense it in your razor-sharp Spidey-sense intuition or whatever, but if the Administration can't produce any factual evidence, then neither can you. And tripe from partisan "news" websites does not count as "evidence."

People supported the war resolution because Bush said Iraq had WMD's and we were scared. So when we go in, and there are no WMD's, and three and a half years later we are still stuck there, and Iraq is worse than when we went in, people get pissed off about it. It is a botched war.

The American people do not routinely support wars unless either there is a direct existential causus belli, or the war is quick and relatively painless.

Afghanistan -- They were sheltering OBL --> strong support.
Bosnia -- no casualties, not much opposition
Iraq '91 -- over and done with quickly --> strong support
Cold War -- existential threat, but drug out very long --> mixed support
Vietnam -- theoretical threat, got bogged down, people we were "liberating" didn't want to be liberated, disingenuous causus belli --> unpopular war
Korea -- theoretical threat, got bogged down --> unpopular war
World War II --grave existential threat, obviously evil enemy --> strong support
World War I -- oblique threat, resolved quickly (once we entered it)--> mixed support
Phillipine War -- blatant imperialism --> extremely unpopular
Spanish-American War -- seemingly clear causus belli that turned out to be false flag terrorism, over quickly --> initially popular, unpopular in retrospect

Basically, the American people support a war when we are fighting somebody who has attacked us, or whom we perceive to represent a threat that can destroy us, and where there is a clear objective. Anything short of this, and the American people will support it only if it doesn't drag on for very long.

In the war you cut your teeth on, a foreign economic and military superpower which had been conquering lands all around the Pacific Rim launched an attack on American territory and destroyed much of our Pacific fleet. Their ally, Germany, the largest military power and second-largest economic power on Earth, who was busy conquering most of Europe and slaughtering people left and right, and who in the past had discussed chopping up our country and giving parts of it back to Mexico, then declared war on us. I'm thinking if I were alive at that time, I legitimately would be freaking out about being conquered by Germany and Japan and being killed, or at best driven into a forced labor camp. We knew who our enemies were, and we knew we better get moving on fighting them if we wanted to survive.

So if you are wondering why the Iraq war is so widely panned, it is not because later generations are morally inferior to you, it is because it was started on grounds that turned out to be invalid, there is no tangible existential threat that it eliminated, it may in fact have made our security situation worse, there is no clear objective, no plan for victory, and we've been stuck there for several years with no light at the end of the tunnel.

[Nbadan]

Iraq is just a foot-print to a much larger, and costlier, asymmetrical war that would take place in the greater M.E. if we attacked Iran - that was the plan all along. Iraq supposedly had, billions of gallons of oil still in the ground, I say, had, because much of that oil has today been looted by a combination of vertical drilling from neighboring areas to make up from dwindling oil reserves, and cash and carry deals with corrupt oil officials. Meanwhile, the Iraqi people aren't seeing any of the profits from the looting of their most precious natural resource. That said, Iran and it's southern oil fields, combined with it's convienient access to the resource-rich Caspien Sea basin, would set anyone up in oil and gas for a long time. Economies can only trive with more and more resources, but there is only a finite amount of oil still in the ground available in the world and that supply is getting smaller.

When Bush hints that time will justify the war in Iraq, he means that our military's continued control of the resource-rich Persian Gulf, including Iraq and Iran, will help insure that the U.S. economy will have the resources to keep growing. It's the taming of the frontier West done all over again next generation style, and the first thing the U.S. did in the Wild West was take control the land and resources and tame, or eliminate, the Indians.