Here's something you Gore jockeys might find interesting: "If you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He's already demonstrated a willingness to use these weapons. He poison-gassed his own people. He used poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors. This man has no compunction about killing lots and lots of people." (Al Gore, 1998) And this: "Since the State of the Union there has been much discussion of whether Iraq, Iran and North Korea truly constitute an “Axis of Evil.” As far as I’m concerned, there really is something to be said for occasionally putting diplomacy aside and laying one’s cards on the table. There is value in calling evil by its name." (Al Gore, February 2002) Oh yes, and then there's this gem: "In 1991, I crossed party lines and supported the use of force against Saddam Hussein, but he was allowed to survive his defeat as the result of a calculation we all had reason to deeply regret for the ensuing decade. And we still do. So this time, if we resort to force, we must absolutely get it right. It must be an action set up carefully and on the basis of the most realistic concepts. Failure cannot be an option, which means that we must prepared to go the limit." (Still Al Gore) But you make your own conclusions. Girlfriend.
So wait, does this mean Al wouldn't wimp out and let King Saddam take up residence in the oval office? Dammit! I wouldn't have voted for him then. I demand a recount!
And yet in NONE of these statements did Gore call for an outright invasion and occupation of Iraq. Nobody is trying to defend Saddam as a good person and I believe that there IS value in calling evil by its name and I further believe that we MUST be prepared to go to the limit to defend Americans and America. But we didn't have to start a preemptive war based on faulty intelligence provided by an enemy government...girlfriend.
OK, well I guess next time we'll just wait and be really, really, really sure. As long as it takes. Just sit and wait.
So are you against preemptive war? Or Faulty intelligence? Or Both? Intelligence by Satellite would have never gotten better than the information we had. Preemptive war is not unjust. You might want to make some more qualifiers.
Good God, no. Everyone knows that war is the first thing you do. If there's one thing you don;t wat to give too much thought too, it's whether or not to invade another nation which hasn't attacked you. All these tree hugging libs don't seem to understand that the deaths of a few thousand Arabs don't matter a hill of beans when placed against the possibility of us having to let the likes of Saddam Hussein stay in power, what with all the damage he'd done to us since the last war...
Of course he's pissed. Our amazing country is mired in perpetual war, shedding respectability and earning the hatred of the world. And Gore could have prevented this. He'd better be pissed.
Let's invade Austria. I hear the'yre arming flying pigs with cheese bombs taken from the Moon, and plan on attacking us soon. Unles you can prove me wrong, let's invade.
Of course nobody was just sitting and waiting. The policy for Iraq was still regime change, aggressive efforts were being made with weapons inspectors, no-fly zones, and tougher and tougher measures being proposed all the time. As Marine General Anthony Zinni says, containment was working to a large extent. Some people only think something is being done if it's military invasion. But that other things can be done without there being a full scale invasion.
And in the meantime, maybe we could focus on those who were responsible for killing 3,000 of our citizens rather than the guy who's last sanctioned act against the U.S. was 10 years prior. Now, we've got our troops and civilians dodging bullets over there everyday and reports of Al Qaeda being close to another terrorist attack over here. Bang up job.
Nope. http://www.ird-renew.org/News/News.cfm?ID=548&c=4 http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0202/public.html#just http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2185/3_14/99430639/print.jhtml http://www.eppc.org/news/newsID.1577/news_detail.asp http://www.eppc.org/news/newsID.1407/news_detail.asp
So the fact that Saddam and Iraq's Secret Police housed and funded al-Quaeda terrorists and their training facilities frees them any responsibility? Wow, I have GOT to review the rule book on this whole thing!
We have intelligence that the Austrians have developed pig dispersing aerial drones that can be launched from ships off the U.S. coast.
