And yet it's rimrocker, MB, 95 and Major that get banned. When was the last time this guy did anything but troll?
It was my first general election since 88 that I voted Dem. I always vote in the Dem primaries, but Dukakis was the last Dem I voted for in the general.
I'd rather be arrogant and right than ignorant and wrong 10x out of 10. Example: Michael Bloomberg is an ******* but an excellent mayor. Speaking of a bunch of people being right and a bunch of ignorant folks being wrong, let's get back to the subject matter of this thread....although most of the proWMD folks, both here and in real life, were "ignor-arrogant"
Wasn’t it Rove's strategy to get out the “Evangelical” vote. The people who supposedly did not vote for Bush in 2000 because of his DUI. Republicans did a better job getting out the vote but that doesn’t mean they converted Democrats.
I'm a smoker Sam, so I can't rightly agree with you there. I don't even like to visit NYC anymore. But yeah, let's get back to it. Bush willfully misled us and we're in this war for no reason. Discuss.
I recall that on this very BBS, there were articles posted about the CIA not believing that there were WMDs or that Iraq was any kind of a threat. Man, if only we could dig those up. See, I believe that the CIA knew damn well there was no reason to go into Iraq and reported those findings to the President. But this administration wanted to go into Iraq. I'm not gonna pull out the oil card, I think it was for strategy sake. They thought Iraq would be a cake walk and that they could turn it into a stable democracy very quickly. Then they could pull the military bases out of Saudi Arabia and put them in Iraq. With the military out of the holy land, there was one less excuse for terrorist to attack us. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if both political parties jointly decided to lay the blame on the CIA so that when no WMDs turned up, everybody who was for the war at any point could say they made their decision based on "bad intelligence."
I am ok with standing by my original assessment that Saddam had an active WMD program. I never believed he was one day away from the bomb, but there are many variables that could lead one to believe he had an active program that would make you neither ignorant, nor arrogant. -Defectors, including those involved in his weapons programs, claimed he was building WMDs. -Material used in building WMDs were unaccounted for (ie stockpile inventory didn't add up). -He obsfucated the UN weapons inspectors. For me this was a determining factor in deciding whether or not I believed he was pursuing a weapons program. Had he come clean, sanctions would have been lifted and he would have continued as leader of Iraq unabated. What motive did he have to continue to obsruct the inspections?
You may not have known they turned out to be supplied by Chalabi, and have been discredited. But the Whitehouse should have known it.
In the end he opened up completely to inspections. And his stated motive has been known for some time now. He wanted Iran to think he was more dangerous than he was. Makes pretty good sense to me. Meanwhile, we were told not only that he had WMD's and that he had a delivery system capable of threatening us (neither of which appears now to be true and neither of which the administration still thinks or says), but that we knew where they were. In the end, as a staunch opponent of this war, even I am surprised at how little (read: none) was actually there.
Funny how you and your liberal brethren are so willing to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt. *At the time a decision had to be made*, Saddam was not complying with the inspectors and tons of deadly weapons were unaccounted for. The only rational way to protect our country was to take action. We did. It is only with the benefit hindsight that you cast stones at our leaders. If you think that Saddam Hussein, a certifiable madman and a killer of epic proportions, is more credible than the United States government, than just come out and say it, Batman. Just say it. It truly amazes me the depths to which some will stoop (i.e. believing Saddam at his word when we have a country to protect) in order to attack our own government.
They weren't willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. They were willing to listen to the inspectors who were actually there on the ground at the time. Those inspectors asked for additional time. In addition the thousands of U.S. intel officers that was proposed being allowed on the ground in Iraq isn't just taking Saddam's word for it. It isn't only through hindsight, since most of us believed the war was an elective one to begin with, and the one person(Ritter) who claimed over and over that Saddam didn't have any significant WMD's was called a traitor and a Saddam lover. In this case we can ask who was more accurate, and in this particular case I'm ashamed to say that Saddam was the one telling the truth, and the Bush administration were the ones trying to make cases out of aluminum tubing etc.
Wrong again, Jorge. All I'm doing in this thread is repeating the exact same things I said before the war began with the benefit of every single one of the last year's events backing up my previous assertions. Hardly hindsight. What's really amazing is that even with all the new info, all the retractions from the administration, all the admissions that every single thing they told us about WMD's or Al Qaeda connections has turned out to be false, with all that "benefit of hindsight," you still can't admit you were wrong to support the war. I will also repeat, as I have each of the hundred times you've made the same slanderous BS charge, I have never taken Saddam at his word. That's why I wanted to continue inspections. You are (once again) full of crap saying Saddam wasn't complying and so we had to take action. He was complying in all but one way -- he refused to admit to having weapons which we now know he did not have. At first Bush said that to avoid war Saddam would have to open his entire country to inspectors. When he did that Bush said he would have to admit to having WMD's to avoid war. He said he couldn't do that since he didn't have WMD's. My take then was, I don't know if we can believe him so let's keep looking. Bush's take was if he won't admit to having the weapons we'll go to war. We went to war and the weapons weren't there. Bush couldn't have been more wrong. You couldn't have been more wrong. I am flabbergasted at how right I was not to trust this administration, but I'm even more amazed at how you continue to defend them.
The hilarious part of this bit is that we went to war because the inspectors were taking too long to find weapons which apparently did not exist.
12 years of inspections wasn't enough for you? How many times did Saddam have to kick them out before you got concerned? With Saddam's *known* connections to terrorists, did it not concern you that he had thousands of tons of WMD which were unaccounted for? Did it further not concern you that he was being evasive and non-compliant in the inspectors' process? At what point do you raise an eyebrow here, Batman? Huh? What's it take? Another attack on US soil? Saddam had a history of lying and killing. Yet you were so trusting of him? Hmm... or maybe you just reject every single policy move of the Bush Administration and hope to get one right every now and then. You know what they say, a broken clock is right twice a day. National Security is an enormous issue. For the US to adopt your "trust a tyrant" policy would be downright foolhardy.
Jorge: This is my last response to you today. I'm trying my hardest not to call you out as the liar and the ******* you are for continuing to call me a Saddam apologist when I have never, ever taken Saddam at his word. I'd like it very much if you would stop telling this lie. THE. WEAPONS. WERE. NOT. THERE. Bush admits this. His entire administration admits this. Only you do not admit this. Bush I's national security advisor Brent Scowcroft held the exact same position I did before this war. So did several other prominent Republicans. They were not Saddam lovers. I am not a Saddam lover. I didn't happen into being right on this like a broken watch and I didn't just happen to be right on one aspect. If I trusted anyone over the administration it was not Saddam but rather the UN, the inspectors on the ground and the CIA. I also said that if either (1) WMD's with the capability of reaching us were found, or (2) Iraq was shown to have been complicit in 9/11 or shown to have a meaningful, ongoing relationship with the actual enemy Bin Laden, my opposition to the war would immediately turn to support as it was with Afghanistan. None of those things happened. I would never have dreamed that I would have been so right in this case and you so wrong, but it happened. Man up and take it. Anybody wants to have a real conversation in this thread, I'm game. But I'm done talking to the troll.
Batman, you call me curse words and a troll all the time. Can you not defend a position without losing your cool? Seriously. My main point, which you are conveniently ignoring, is that *at the time a decision had to be made*, Saddam was not complying, thousands of tons of WMD were unaccounted for, and intelligence was pointing towards WMD activity. How can you defend the country if you don't act on that? Inspections weren't doing squat. Saddam was basically ignoring them. Look, you criticize darn near every single Bush Administration policy. Well of course you are going to get *lucky* and hit on one or two. That's like me betting against the Rockets every game, and when they lose saying, "I'm a genius! I can predict the outcome of the Rockets' game!" Lunacy. Listening to your hindsight analysis is just silly. It's a waste of time. We had to make a decision 2 years ago based on the information we had. We did that. You can't go back and second guess after more information is now available. That's not how security works. Your "Trust a Tyrant" strategy is ridiculous and shows how far you will go to slander this Administration.
sorta sad how divided the country is, but for the record why anyone in their right minds believe half the crap they read in certain papers/message baffles me. most articles are so one-sided and slanted that you dont get the full story. thats life though and its what attracts certain readers, noone here is going to convert another to their ideas/beliefs so why cant everyone just discuss things that wont make you argue? just my 2 cents
Okay, "Trust a Tyrant" for the ninetieth time earns you a trip to ignore. Before I go, I defy you to name one (just freaking one) Bush statement or policy wrt Iraq where Bush was right and I was wrong. Just one. You say 12 years was too long, that the inspectors were taking too long. Guess what? We've had over a year more, with Saddam in custody, to find the weapons. Not only have we not found them, we've stopped looking. They didn't exist. We could have given the inspectors a thousand years and they wouldn't have found weapons that didn't exist. I'm not using hindsight to criticize -- I'm using it to ******* gloat. I was right ON EVERY COUNT and on every count you were wrong. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to gloat now after all your slanderous accusations. I'm not going back to second guess, I'm not leaning on hindsight -- I employ the new information only as further proof of how right I was and how wrong you were and continue to be. You know about slander, right? That's when you make false accusations. The difference between you and me is that you accuse me of things that are not true. I think my lawyer friends here will back me up when I say that derogatory comments are not slander if they are true. As such, I think I'm safe calling you a troll. As for me not being able to 'argue' with you without getting mad, well, no one can if they actually make the mistake of engaging you. I say the sky's blue and you say why are you such a commie. I say I'm not a commie and by the way why can't you admit the sky's blue. You say why won't you stop being such a commie. You're a troll, Jorge. And now you're on ignore.
Yes, but we're talking about what was out there at the time, not hindsight. And again there were other factors that made it reasonable at the time to assume he was building WMDs. Uh, no. In fact, the anti-war crowd, led by MacBeth, trumpeted the fact that Bush offered not to invade if he came 100% clean as proof that humanitarian concerns weren't a factor in the intervention. His stated motive was that he wanted Iran to think he was more dangerous than he was? It wouldn't have had much effect if that was his STATED motive, now would it. Don't know where you got this from, but his refusal to allow unincumbered inspections was widely discussed before the intervention, and NO ONE said it was because he was afraid of Iran. Never thought he had a delivery system capable of reaching the US, nor (as I've previously said) that he was on the brink of nukes. Didn't matter - He was an inevitable (as opposed to imminent) threat to the US. In addition, as I've stated many times, he was a despot that needed removing.
