CPAC...Round them up and Send them to Camp Gitmo

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Clinton didn't consider Iraq dangerous enough to invade. I'm not saying Iraq and Saddam Hussein weren't dangerous, I'm saying Iraq wasn't such a threat that it justified an invasion. The way the Bush administration whipped up support using word games is a good indication that the plain facts did NOT justify an invasion, so one was manufactured.

[BrentAllen]

Clinton didn't think there was enough evidence to invade? How about attack? How about build a strong enough case to get the allies to join us?

 

12/16/98

 

"Earlier today I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces," Clinton said.

 

"Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors," said Clinton.

 

Clinton also stated that, while other countries also had weapons of mass destruction, Hussein is in a different category because he has used such weapons against his own people and against his neighbors.

 

 

'Without delay, diplomacy or warning'

 

The Iraqi leader was given a final warning six weeks ago, Clinton said, when Baghdad promised to cooperate with U.N. inspectors at the last minute just as U.S. warplanes were headed its way.

 

"Along with Prime Minister (Tony) Blair of Great Britain, I made it equally clear that if Saddam failed to cooperate fully we would be prepared to act without delay, diplomacy or warning," Clinton said.

 

The president said the report handed in Tuesday by Richard Butler, head of the United Nations Special Commission in charge of finding and destroying Iraqi weapons, was stark and sobering.

 

Iraq failed to cooperate with the inspectors and placed new restrictions on them, Clinton said. He said Iraqi officials also destroyed records and moved everything, even the furniture, out of suspected sites before inspectors were allowed in.

 

"Instead of inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors," Clinton said.

 

"In halting our airstrikes in November, I gave Saddam a chance -- not a license. If we turn our backs on his defiance, the credibility of U.S. power as a check against Saddam will be destroyed," the president explained.

 

 

Strikes necessary to stunt weapons programs

 

Clinton said he made the decision to strike Wednesday with the unanimous agreement of his security advisors.

 

Timing was important, said the president, because without a strong inspection system in place, Iraq could rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear programs in a matter of months, not years.

 

"If Saddam can cripple the weapons inspections system and get away with it, he would conclude the international community, led by the United States, has simply lost its will," said Clinton. "He would surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction."

 

Clinton also called Hussein a threat to his people and to the security of the world.

 

"The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people," Clinton said.

 

Such a change in Baghdad would take time and effort, Clinton said, adding that his administration would work with Iraqi opposition forces.

 

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

I was referring to the end of Clinton's term when Bush took over. The US was not attacking Iraq then.

[BrentAllen]

Merlyn,

Clinton's speech represented the position of the intelligence community at that time. Nothing happened between then and the time that Bush decided to invade that would have changed the position of the intelligence community. Inspectors were not allowed to do their job. As Clinton stated, the fear was Saddam could hide his programs from the international community. Take a look at those three key paragraphs again:

 

"Timing was important, said the president, because without a strong inspection system in place, Iraq could rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear programs in a matter of months, not years.

 

"If Saddam can cripple the weapons inspections system and get away with it, he would conclude the international community, led by the United States, has simply lost its will," said Clinton. "He would surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction."

 

Clinton also called Hussein a threat to his people and to the security of the world."

 

Again, nothing material changed to lead Bush or anyone else to change their opinion from what Clinton stated above. As you saw, Clinton was even in favor of changing regimes, and was working with opposition forces.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

That doesn't explain the smoke & mirrors with Powell and the fake anthrax, Rice and the vague nuclear threat, or how the Bush administration deliberately mislead people to think Iraq had something to do with 9/11. If you have good reasons to do something, you don't make up stories to justify doing it, you state what the good reasons are.

[GernBlansten]

You forget about Cheney's special office he setup in the Pentagon to gather evidence to support the invasion because the CIA intel didn't support his plans.

 

Look at the reality. Clinton didn't invade. Bush did. There were no WMD. Who looks foolish?

[TheScout]

"I guess you have not read Mein Kampf along the way, The Scout. Too bad. Apart from the insidiouness of the plan, it's an archetype of political polemic literature."

 

I have read the book. Several years ago as a teenager, but I have read it.

 

"Hitler's strategic goal was world hegemony under the flag of the swastika. His agenda included"

 

World Conquest has long been the goal of the powerful.

 

Alexander the Great.

The Romans.

Genghis Khan

Napoleon

 

Just to go off the top of my head without even thinking.

 

How did they all end up?

 

If a Napoleon, Alexander, or Genghis Khan couldn't take the world, who else could?

 

 

 

 

[Beavah]

Yah, TheScout, yeh remind me of a typical bright undergraduate, eh? Are you? There can be a certain fun and fascination in entertainin' oddball theories and pokin' a stick in the eye of established scholarship. Old folks don't know everything and all that.

 

Thing is, eventually yeh get beyond "well, it could be..." and instead mature to "well, what is most sensible and likely?" And while that moves yeh back toward more mainline scholarship, I reckon it also moves yeh back toward the credible and truthful.

 

As for WMD in Iraq, I remember never really buyin' it at the time. The explanation was too vague and it shifted too many times. I thought that the real intention of the war was to establish bases on the borders of Iran and Syria, two of the world's bad actors, which would help stabilize the area. Plus they had the experience from Gulf War I where it bought us cheap oil and economic expansion for a decade (one of da real impetuses behind the Clinton economy, which of course Clinton had nothin' to do with but took credit for). I think they were seein' another round of cheap oil.

 

Neither of those reasons for war are salable, even though they make a bit of strategic sense, eh?

 

I think there's been enough evidence from insiders and the kiss-and-tell books to conclude at this point that Iraq had been on the agenda of a bunch of the neocons well before 9/11, and that like any folks who are a bit arrogant and in love with their own ideas they tended to discredit contrary evidence and viewpoints while inflatin' the "we'll be welcomed with open arms" stuff. Nuthin' unusual about that. I think what allowed it to run off the rails was that the last administration was so all-fired determined to stack all da positions with group-thinkers. "Loyalists" perhaps, but also "yes men." That's the sort of thing that lets folks who are a bit arrogant and in love with their own ideas not to get the checks and feedback that they need.

 

I don't think they lied so much as they convinced themselves and dismissed all other viewpoints and data, eh? And they had some decent thoughts. Saddam was a rat-bastard and riddin' the world of him was a service. Cheap oil does wonders for an economy. Havin' bases on the border of Syria and Iraq did make strategic sense. But yeh need to listen to the State Department when they talk about the ethnic issues, and the military when they talk about what they need to get the job of an occupation done, and the economists and civilian experts when they talk about the real cost of nation-building.

 

Were they lyin' to the American people? Only to the extent that they were lyin' to themselves. Never explain as evil what is properly attributed to incompetence. And if one thing defined the neocon Congress and da Bush executive it was the incompetence born of group-think.

 

Beavah

 

[TheScout]

"Yah, TheScout, yeh remind me of a typical bright undergraduate, eh? Are you?"

 

Close enough. A year off.

 

 

"There can be a certain fun and fascination in entertainin' oddball theories and pokin' a stick in the eye of established scholarship. Old folks don't know everything and all that."

 

But its really not that odd. Lots of people talk a big game. Few actually try to pull it off. Even less succeed. There were many reasons we got into World War II. I don't think an impending German invasion of the US was one of them. Go back to World War I. The German Empire then had much less capacity to harm the US - but we still found a way to go to war against them.

 

"I reckon it also moves yeh back toward the credible and truthful."

 

That all being said, I don't think anything I said is particularly not credible or truthful. Of course this is all speculation. What If history has been around for a long time and can be legitimate exercise in scholarship and a good mental exercise. I think Churchill, who himself was a great historian and author, wrote some speculative history about the South winning the Civil War. Discussing how the US could have kept out of World War II is a much less crazy thought.

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

I don't think anyone has said that the US attacked Germany due to a threat of invasion; the US declared war on Germany because Germany declared war on us.

[TheScout]

But who cares?

 

If some crackpot who can barely harm us why do we launch the biggest war in our history, sending our young men and treasure to Europe?

 

What if a harmless country, like Albania declared war on us today? Should we invade and occupy Albania?

 

I wouldn't. I would just laugh.

[OldGreyEagle]

Did you ever read the Book, "The Mouse that Roared"?

[TheScout]

Fiction.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

TheScout, you seem to find it unthinkable for the US to fight against people of west European heritage (Germany, most citizens of the Old South, etc), but find it just fine if the US attacks countries of largely non-white populations, like Japan, Iraq, and so on.

 

As far as you're concerned, if Germany declared war on the US in 1941 and even managed to drop a few bombs on US territory, that would not justify attacking Germany. But that's about what Japan did, and you have no problem there. The only consistency I can see is that you don't like white people getting killed, but are fine with non-whites getting killed.

 

If you have some other basis, I'd like to know what it is.

[TheScout]

I'm actually a non-interventionist in general. Saves American lives, spends less money, lets us lower taxes at home. I like to cite Henry Cabot Lodge and Robert Taft around the world war time periods and admire Ron Paul today.

 

I would have liked to avoid the war with Japan as well. Like it or not, we kinda forced Japan's hand. We held them hostage over the oil they needed to run the war (at that time we ran the world's oil market). They were forced to choose between fighting us and withdrawing from their empire. Without this action, and other measures of freezing assets and aiding Japan's allies, I don't think they would have attacked us.

 

Pearl Harbor was just a brutal backstab that could not be forgiven. Desite the embargo, we had launched no military actions. Plus they had attacked US installations in the Phillipines and throughout the Pacific which had to be liberated.

 

The Iraq war was brought on by other interventionist foreign policiy mistakes. The first Gulf War should have never been fought. Who cares if Iraq or Kuwait owned the oil? They would still sell it to us. They have to. Saddam was our friend anyway. We were on his side against Iran. (Which we shouldn't have been but that is a different story for a different day.

 

Few people know that in the 1940's the US was actually very popular in the Middle East. Then we started intervening. Supporting Israel against the Arabs, and messing with Iran's domestic institutions. There are reasons why they don't like us. They don't hate us just because.

 

That all being said, I for the most part defended President Bush as it seemed most liberals were against the war for mere partisan purposes. I watched so many in the Clinton administration talk about Saddams WMD's and then later vote for the war resolution. And of course once you start a war I say you must win.

 

All that being said - I am more sympathetic to European Christian populations. They are more like us and myself. It is natural to care more about people you are closest too?

 

Who do you care about more? Your family, or some strange family in some random country in say . . . Nigeria?

 

I don't know about you I care about my own country.

 

It is not a radical concept. Why didn't we intervene in Rwanda in 1994? Because it was in the heart of Africa nd nobody cared. Or Sudean now? Same thing.

 

Meanwhile we took great care to drive Serbia from Bosnia and Kosovo over the years. It is in the heart of Europe.