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Post by wdmundt on Sept 25, 2007 12:14:44 GMT -4
I'm not anti-war, Bill. I anti-stupid war. The war in Iraq is stupid and is draining our resources to fight the actual war on terror. The estimated cost of the war in Iraq as of today is $454 billion. I think we could have spent that money a lot more wisely fighting the actual terrorists who attacked us and beefing up security on the home front, rather than turning Iraq into a breeding ground for terrorism. There was no al Qaeda in Iraq before we invaded. But now there is.
I believe we were correct in invading Afghanistan in 2001. Afghanistan harbored those who supported the attacks of 9/11. Our enemies in the war on terror are al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The world was with us as we went after those who attacked us. Invasion should be reserved for the most serious of threats.
We were not attacked by anyone from Iraq on 9/11. Iraq did not fund or support any of the operations on 9/11. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Iraq was not in a position to harm our country in 2003. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction in 2003.
That's great, Bill. Claim that I only look at sources that agree with me and then hook me up with an article from Bill Kristol's magazine.
Iraq was not about to invade its neighbors, nor was it about to attack us. President Bush could never have ordered an invasion of Iraq before 9/11. He used the post-9/11 fervor in this country to gain support for an attack on a country that posed no specific threat. We have squandered our soldiers' lives- 3,798 as of yesterday - against an opponent who could have been contained in other ways.
I'm not saying "Give Peace a Chance," Bill. I'm saying if we have a war to fight, let's unleash hell on those who attacked us. Not on somebody we have a grudge against.
I think it was made by an idiot. Truman said the buck stopped at his own desk. Apparently, with Bush, it stops everywhere but at his desk.
I won't touch that.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 25, 2007 12:27:29 GMT -4
wdmundt, assuming for the moment that you are correct, that the Iraq War has been a complete waste, what is the best course of action to follow now? If we simply remove the troops Al Qaeda will declare victory and Iraq will descend into futher chaos. Many more lives will be lost, and Iraq will become an even greater breeding ground for terrorists. Al Qaeda will have an even stronger recruitment tool (the group that beat America) and will be able to turn its resources away from fighting in Iraq and towards other projects, such as striking in America itself again. Other nations around the world will perceive the withdrawl as weakness and pursue their own agendas without fear of American intervention.
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Post by wdmundt on Sept 25, 2007 12:38:14 GMT -4
There is no good course of action, at this point. We leave, it is a disaster. We stay, more US soldiers give up their lives and limbs for nothing. Short of building a time machine, going back with videotape showing what a disaster Iraq would be, there just is no good option. The time machine isn't a very good option, either.
But if Bill is going to link us to an idiot video trying to make fun of people opposed to he war, I'm going to respond.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Sept 25, 2007 12:39:18 GMT -4
wdmundt, assuming for the moment that you are correct, that the Iraq War has been a complete waste, what is the best course of action to follow now? Remove the people responsible for making such horrible decisions from office and then try to clean up their mess. It might mean keeping troops in Iraq until things have stabilized, but in the meantime you won't have incompetent and/or dishonest fools running your country. Maybe it won't fix Iraq, but it might prevent blunders like it from happening again.
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Post by Bill Thompson on Sept 25, 2007 12:50:51 GMT -4
I will admit that maybe I am wrong. I only have the information that I have seen so far and read so far. But at the same time, I have noticed that people who disagree with me too have not seen everything and usually thay have not seen and read what I have.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 25, 2007 12:56:01 GMT -4
Remove the people responsible for making such horrible decisions from office and then try to clean up their mess. It might mean keeping troops in Iraq until things have stabilized, but in the meantime you won't have incompetent and/or dishonest fools running your country. Maybe it won't fix Iraq, but it might prevent blunders like it from happening again. President Bush is guaranteed to be out of office in a little over a year, and given his current low popularity (though it is higher than Congress') is unlikely to start another unpopular war in that time anyway. And isn't General Petreus "cleaning up the mess" already? By all reports he is making progress in stabalizing Iraq.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Sept 25, 2007 13:07:12 GMT -4
Why wait until the next election to hold Bush and Cheney responsible for their mistakes? Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were impeached for far less serious mistakes.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 25, 2007 13:12:03 GMT -4
Presidents should only be impeached for crimes, not mistakes.
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Post by wdmundt on Sept 25, 2007 13:33:11 GMT -4
As much as I don't like President Bush, I don't think he has committed an impeachable offense.
This is of interest in that area, however:
From the transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike in US," given to President Bush:
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America." .....
Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. ....
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
President George W. Bush's response to the CIA officer who had delivered the report: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."
I don't think this impeachable. But I do think that conservatives would have hung Al Gore by his thumbs if he had been president and had responded that way.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 25, 2007 13:44:21 GMT -4
Bill Clinton let OBL go when he was offered up on a platter and we haven't hung him up by his thumbs. Not seeing just how serious the threat of Al Qaeda was is something the entire country was afflicted with. Only in hindsight can we see that this report should have been acted on.
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Post by homobibiens on Sept 25, 2007 15:01:12 GMT -4
Presidents should only be impeached for crimes, not mistakes. That's something of an issue in the US system, in which the congress decides whether to bring charges, and the senate decides whether to convict, with no judicial oversight. If the congress decides to impeach him for parting his hair on the wrong side, and the senate convicts, then...
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 25, 2007 15:07:19 GMT -4
Presidents should only be impeached for crimes, not mistakes. That's something of an issue in the US system, in which the congress decides whether to bring charges, and the senate decides whether to convict, with no judicial oversight. If the congress decides to impeach him for parting his hair on the wrong side, and the senate convicts, then... Then they may do so, but in my opinion they should not do so.
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Post by wdmundt on Sept 25, 2007 20:48:58 GMT -4
I hope you’re not referring to that scene in “Path to 9/11” where the CIA and the Northern Alliance had bin Laden’s house surrounded and Clinton called it off, because that never happened. Here is what the 9/11 Commission Report says about it:
CIA director George Tenet told us that given the recommendation of his chief operations officers, he alone had decided to "turn off" the operation. He had simply informed Berger, who had not pushed back. Berger’s recollection was similar. He said the plan was never presented to the White House for a decision. The CIA’s senior management clearly did not think the plan would work. Tenet’s deputy director of operations wrote to Berger a few weeks later that the CIA assessed the tribals’ ability to capture Bin Ladin and deliver him to U.S. officials as low.
The CIA did not surround bin Laden's house at a time when he was known to be in it.
Didn’t the Republicans hang Bill Clinton by his thumbs? Isn’t that what Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, the Paula Jones investigation and the investigation into the death of Vince Foster were all about? And, after spending $50 million, what did Ken Star charge Bill Clinton with? Nothing. But he did get Clinton for marital infidelity and trying to hide it. Yay for Republicans.
Now, I’m not defending the Clinton/Lewinsky thing. It was dumb. But it was not a matter of national importance – yet the Republicans used it to damage presidential authority.
With all that as a backdrop, Clinton was a seriously weekend president. When he launched cruise missiles at Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for bombings at US Embassies in 1998, there was a cry that he was “wagging the dog;” using the attacks as a way to distract everyone from the Lewinsky scandal. It is unlikely that congress would have authorized any kind of major military response to al Qaeda.
The first World Trade Center attack happened when Clinton had only been in office for one month. I don’t recall anyone blaming George Bush Sr. for that.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Sept 25, 2007 21:47:33 GMT -4
There was an incident where a predator had OBL in sight, but Clinton refused to let them fire because his advisers told him that he'd get more flack about “wagging the dog” and using that attack as a way to distract everyone from the Lewinsky scandal, so he let him go. Had the Reps not gone on about it the first time, he might have actually fired the second.
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Post by wdmundt on Sept 25, 2007 22:58:11 GMT -4
It wasn't an armed Predator. There were no armed Predators until after 9/11.
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