Brooks (NYT): The real story of the Duelfer Report

Doesn't matter in the least. 9/11 changed everything, remember?

 

I'm just glad we are no longer menaced by stucco palaces of mass destruction.

 

Yep. Kerry voted against a war that he didn't think was the right thing to do in '91, but 9/11 changed the context of the times. He believed that Saddam was a threat when he voted to authorize GWB to use force, but also believed that in order to be legitimate, such an action would need to be supported by a coalition the likes of which GHWB created.

You can try to twist Kerry's decade old votes all you like, but it STILL doesn't change the fact that Kerry has been VERY consistent regarding Iraq and the actions we should have taken.

Personally, I think Kerry showed that he has the ability to analyze his position in light of the facts (9/11) and change how he thinks things should be done. He didn't believe that Iraq was the right action in '91, but in light of 9/11, saw that Saddam could have become a threat and that we needed to move to mitigate said threat. He disagrees with the way GWB dealt with it, a point that he has not wavered from in the least.

 

He didn't say that Kerry's '91 vote was correct, just that it wasn't relevant to what his plan for the future.

 

I guess when you allow the GOP to addle your brain with their lies, confusion is the result.


In '91, for some reason (that is absolutely immaterial now), Kerry thought that the action was not warrented. I (along with most of the rest of the world) disagree with him on that, but it is neither here nor there with regards to the current argument.

The "global test" has to do with preemption, but not as a sole determinant. The "global test" is for legitimacy, legitimacy that we cannot claim in the current action in Iraq as, we should be aware of based on the reports from the field, most of the country doesn't want us there, the insurgency is growing, and it has been reported that Saddam would win in a landslide were he on the ticket.

 

Scott Ritter is arguably the only person in the entire iraq saga w/ less credibility than Saddam himself.

Basso, you hurt your own credibility by making a naked assertion like that. Ritter was the most right of any well know public commentator. He stated repeatedly that he thought Sadam had abolished essentialy all of his wmd and if any remained they were not a threat. Contrast that with Bush, Powell, Cheny, Rumsfeld etc.

It is no accident you don't address this issue and attempt to make an unproved assertion.

 

When it comes to wmd I think it is always good to remember that the highest ranking defectors ever, the son in laws of Sadam, who later returned to be executed, told the US that Sadam had destroyed the wmd in 1991.

This was discussed, before the US invasion. Incredibly the Administrtion used other statements by the son in laws to try to buttress their arguments that Sadam was an imminent threat.

Bush and Tony lied; our troops died over non-existent wmd. Sad, but true. Welcome to the real world.

 

The real story of the Duelfer Report? That the Bush Administration:

A.) Lied through their teeth
B.) Were fooled into waging war
C.) A and B

No matter how you look at it, the Duelfer Report confirms that this administration is either corrupt, inept or both.

 

I shouldn't have used the word "vastly." Just superior would have been more appropriate. Here are Hitler's own words regarding the occupation of the Rhineland, against the advice of the German General Staff:

(Adolf Hitler met Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Austrian Federal Chancellor on 12th February, 1938. Schuschnigg later recalled what Hitler said to him at the meeting about marching into the Rhineland in March, 1936.)

"Don't believe that anyone in the world will hinder me in my decisions! Italy? I am quite clear with Mussolini; with Italy I am on the closest possible terms. England? England will not lift a finger for Austria. And France? Well, two years ago when we marched into the Rhineland with a handful of battalions - at that moment I risked a great deal. If France had marched then, we should have been forced to withdraw. But for France it is now too late!"

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERrhineland.htm


History is facinating stuff, isn't it?


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