Prewar justifications: bringing democracy to the ME

basso · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by Nolen
Okay. So, do you think that Bush and the administration really, truly, sincerely considered Sadaam a clear and present danger, an immediate threat to be dealt with?

You think that Bush only really considered regime change after 9/11, not before?

In your opinion, they did not exaggerate or fabricate any evidence showing Sadaam had WMD? They did not ignore or supress any evidence showing that he didn't? (Yes, the onus was on Sadaam to prove compliance; but the war had to be sold to us and this is what I'm talking about- the sell.)
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"Clear and Present Danger?" i guess it depends on how you define those terms, but i would say that under the post 9/11 definition, the answer is unequivocally "yes." the idea is that the best defense is a good offense. if you feel we shouldn't be in the business of taking out threats before they become "imminent", that our defense posture should only be reactive, you're likely to disagree. 9/11 showed the danger in that type of policy. the world has changed, we must change w/ it, or resign oursleves to fighting new battles on the streets of NYC, Washington, or Houston. I'd rather be fighting Kabul or Baghdad.

Also remember, regime change in iraq has been official US policy since 1998, well before the Bush adminstration.

I don't think they exaggerated or fabricated evidence of WMD, although i think they over-emphasised it. it's part of what i meant by Bush not being the best advocate for his own policies. Regime change, WMD, and democracy for iraq and the larger ME were all part of the sell, however they perhaps concentrated too much on the WMD angle. I heard the rest of it, there was ample information available from a wide variety of sources, but i think war opponents are equally guilty of over-emphasis on WMD, because they want to use their absence as a club with which to beat the administration. MOst supporters of action iraq that i know, understood it was about more than WMD.

basso · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by Deckard
Let's take out one word of this sentence...

"If you don't the Americans b**** and moan about unilateral action, throwing away the goodwill built up after 9/11, destroying our diplomatic ties to traditional allies, etc."

Do you really want to go here? Do you truly think that "throwing away the goodwill built up after 9/11, destroying our diplomatic ties to traditional allies, etc." ...is meaningless in a world more closely interwoven than it has ever been? That having allies is meaningless? That "destroying our diplomatic ties to traditional allies" is meaningless? That "throwing away the goodwill built up after 9/11" is meaningless? That it hasn't hurt our country? That it hasn't made us weaker? Do you deny that the bulk of goodwill built up after 9/11, which continued during the Afghan War, wasn't throw away when Bush unilaterally made his elective war upon Iraq?

Truly? Do you use this tool, the internet, to follow the news at all?

I have to conclude that you do not. To be blunt, and this addresses basso as well, how can a man or woman of intelligence fail to see that the invasion and occupation of Iraq damaged our country? One can certainly hold the opinion that it was the right thing to do, and although I would disagree, I respect that opinion, but how can any of you deny that doing so has weakened our country both militarily and diplomatically?

If you believe this adventure was the right thing to do, how can you deny that it has caused our country to pay a terrible price, and a terrible price we will be paying for many years to come? Is there no accountability? Is any criticism, from any source, Republican or Democrat, moderate or independent or conservative, to be automatically dismissed, with the frequent implication that said criticism is somehow un-American and unpatriotic, no matter the source? Is that truly the road down which you wish to take this country?

I'll leave it at that, because I'm trying to maintain some civility.

Keep D&D Civil!!
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Deck, i hear your passion, and i know you must strongly believe this, but it's incredibly wrong-headed in my opinion. The US, or Bush administration, did not "throw away" the goodwill of our traditional allies. if anything, and giddy said as much, the reverse is true. I am, and have always been, an atlanticist at heart. my father emmigrated from denmark at the age of 20. i've made countless trips to western europe (and briefly to eastern, back in the day), spent months in germany and france in the '80s and early '90s, speak enough french and italian to get by (my german sucks), and i feel incredibly betrayed by the actions of the french in particular. Chirac and De Villepin completely sandbagged Powell at the UN. they led him to believe they would back the US, and at the last moment pulled the rug out from underneath him. this is a failure of US diplomacy how, exactly? je repete, the french were never going to have our backs in iraq. so i ask you, in what sense is a country an "ally" when it can't be counted upon in our hour of need? to try an blame bush for chicar's treachery is simply nonsensical.

has our country been weakened? absolutely not! we are more secure today than we were in the spring of 2003, and we will be even more secure once democracy has taken firm holdin iraq, and by extension elsewhere in the ME. the "security" of the status quo in the ME was a dangerous illusion, and i can't believe that someone as perceptive as yourself cannot momentarily put aside partisanship and examine the amazing work that has been accomplished in iraq and afghanistan. did we pay a sad price in america lives? yes. was it worth it? i believe it was. do i care what the french think? **** no. here's a more recent example of french perfidy:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1559253,00.html

During a state visit to China, French Premier Raffarin threw support behind a law allowing China to attack Taiwan and continued to push for a lift of the EU arms embargo.

At the outset of a three-day visit to China, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said he supported Beijing's "anti-secession" law on Taiwan, and vowed to keep pushing for an end to an EU arms embargo that could open the door for Paris to sell weapons to the Asian giant.

Raffarin also signed or finalized major business deals with Beijing valued at around $3.2 billion (2.4 billion euros).
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a final thought. next month marks the 60th anniversary of VE day. there are still 62,000 American troops in Europe. They are stationed in 236 bases, including 13 training areas. The force has been reduced considerably over the years, especially after the Cold War ended in 1991, leaving over a quarter million American troops in Europe. But in 2015 there will still be 24,000 American troops over there, in 88 bases, and using four training areas. I guess FDR should never have invaded w/out an exit strategy.

Sishir Chang · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by basso
"Clear and Present Danger?" i guess it depends on how you define those terms, but i would say that under the post 9/11 definition, the answer is unequivocally "yes." the idea is that the best defense is a good offense. if you feel we shouldn't be in the business of taking out threats before they become "imminent", that our defense posture should only be reactive, you're likely to disagree. 9/11 showed the danger in that type of policy. the world has changed, we must change w/ it, or resign oursleves to fighting new battles on the streets of NYC, Washington, or Houston. I'd rather be fighting Kabul or Baghdad.
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To tie this into some of the other threads this sounds remarkably like the same logic that the PRC uses to justify why they need the military option in Taiwan. That if they don't act soon Taiwan will become a platform to attack the mainland. More disturbing this sounds like the rhetoric that the Japanese have in the Yakushin War musuem that says that they were justified to attack Pearl Harbor because the US was becoming a threat to the Japanese Empire.

basso · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by Sishir Chang
To tie this into some of the other threads this sounds remarkably like the same logic that the PRC uses to justify why they need the military option in Taiwan. That if they don't act soon Taiwan will become a platform to attack the mainland. More disturbing this sounds like the rhetoric that the Japanese have in the Yakushin War musuem that says that they were justified to attack Pearl Harbor because the US was becoming a threat to the Japanese Empire.
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if you equate the US with Japan in WW2 then i'm not sure we really have anything to discuss.

No Worries · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by basso
"Clear and Present Danger?" i guess it depends on how you define those terms, ...
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A Clintonesque response. Do I detect nuance?

Oski2005 · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by DaDakota
The biggest issue is all the corrupt leaders in France and Germany and China who were doing under the table deals with his regime thus allowing the UN sanctions to fail.

DD
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Yet you don't seem to mind that Dick Cheney and Halliburton were in the middle of it as well.

Firm's Iraq Deals Greater Than Cheney Has Said; Affiliates Had $73 Million in Contracts

Colum Lynch

06/23/2001
The Washington Post

FINAL
Page A01

UNITED NATIONS -- During last year's presidential campaign, Richard B. Cheney acknowledged that the oil-field supply corporation he headed, Halliburton Co., did business with Libya and Iran through foreign subsidiaries. But he insisted that he had imposed a "firm policy" against trading with Iraq.

"Iraq's different," he said.

According to oil industry executives and confidential United Nations records, however, Halliburton held stakes in two firms that signed contracts to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was chairman and chief executive officer of the Dallas-based company.

Two former senior executives of the Halliburton subsidiaries say that, as far as they knew, there was no policy against doing business with Iraq. One of the executives also says that although he never spoke directly to Cheney about the Iraqi contracts, he is certain Cheney knew about them.

Mary Matalin, Cheney's counselor, said that if he "was ever in a conversation or meeting where there was a question of pursuing a project with someone in Iraq, he said, 'No.' "

"In a joint venture, he would not have reviewed all their existing contracts," Matalin said. "The nature of those joint ventures was that they had a separate governing structure, so he had no control over them."

The trade was perfectly legal. Indeed, it is a case study of how U.S. firms routinely use foreign subsidiaries and joint ventures to avoid the opprobrium of doing business with Baghdad, which does not violate U.S. law as long as it occurs within the "oil-for-food" program run by the United Nations.

Halliburton's trade with Iraq was first reported by The Washington Post in February 2000. But U.N. records recently obtained by The Post show that the dealings were more extensive than originally reported and than Vice President Cheney has acknowledged.

As secretary of defense in the first Bush administration, Cheney helped to lead a multinational coalition against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War and to devise a comprehensive economic embargo to isolate Saddam Hussein's government. After Cheney was named in 1995 to head Halliburton, he promised to maintain a hard line against Baghdad.

But in 1998, Cheney oversaw Halliburton's acquisition of Dresser Industries Inc., which exported equipment to Iraq through two subsidiaries of a joint venture with another large U.S. equipment maker, Ingersoll-Rand Co.

The subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co., sold water and sewage treatment pumps, spare parts for oil facilities and pipeline equipment to Baghdad through French affiliates from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000, U.N. records show. Ingersoll Dresser Pump also signed contracts -- later blocked by the United States -- to help repair an Iraqi oil terminal that U.S.-led military forces destroyed in the Gulf War.

Former executives at the subsidiaries said they had never heard objections -- from Cheney or any other Halliburton official -- to trading with Baghdad.

"Halliburton and Ingersoll-Rand, as far as I know, had no official policy about that, other than we would be in compliance with applicable U.S. and international laws," said Cleive Dumas, who oversaw Ingersoll Dresser Pump's business in the Middle East, including Iraq.

Halliburton's primary concern, added Ingersoll-Rand's former chairman, James E. Perrella, "was that if we did business with [the Iraqi regime], that it be allowed by the United States government. If it wasn't allowed, we wouldn't do it."

Dumas and Perrella said their companies' commercial links to the Iraqi oil industry began before the U.N. Security Council imposed an oil embargo on Baghdad in the wake of its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

They returned to dealing with Iraq after the council established the "oil-for-food" program in December 1996, permitting Iraq to export oil under U.N. supervision and use the proceeds to buy food, medicine and humanitarian goods. The program was expanded in 1998 to allow Iraq to import spare parts for its oil facilities.

The Halliburton subsidiaries joined dozens of American and foreign oil supply companies that helped Iraq increase its crude exports from $4 billion in 1997 to nearly $18 billion in 2000. Since the program began, Iraq has exported oil worth more than $40 billion.

The proceeds funded a sharp increase in the country's nutritional standards, nearly doubling the food rations distributed to Iraq's poor.

But U.S. and European officials acknowledged that the expanded production also increased Saddam Hussein's capacity to siphon off money for weapons, luxury goods and palaces. Security Council diplomats estimate that Iraq may be skimming off as much as 10 percent of the proceeds from the oil-for-food program.

Cheney has offered contradictory accounts of how much he knew about Halliburton's dealings with Iraq. In a July 30, 2000, interview on ABC-TV's "This Week," he denied that Halliburton or its subsidiaries traded with Baghdad.

"I had a firm policy that we wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even arrangements that were supposedly legal," he said. "We've not done any business in Iraq since U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990, and I had a standing policy that I wouldn't do that."

Cheney modified his response in an interview on the same program three weeks later, after he was informed that a Halliburton spokesman had acknowledged that Dresser Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump traded with Iraq.

He said he was unaware that the subsidiaries were doing business with the Iraqi regime when Halliburton purchased Dresser Industries in September 1998.

"We inherited two joint ventures with Ingersoll-Rand that were selling some parts into Iraq ," Cheney explained, "but we divested ourselves of those interests."

The divestiture, however, was not immediate. The firms traded with Baghdad for more than a year under Cheney, signing nearly $30 million in contracts before he sold Halliburton's 49 percent stake in Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co. in December 1999 and its 51 percent interest in Dresser Rand to Ingersoll-Rand in February 2000, according to U.N. records.

Perrella said he believes Halliburton officials must have known about the Iraqi links before they purchased Dresser. "They obviously did due diligence," he said.

And even if Cheney was not told about the business with Baghdad before the purchase, Perrella said, the CEO almost certainly would have learned about it after the acquisition. "Oh, definitely, he was aware of the business," Perrella said, although Perrella conceded that this was an assumption based on knowledge of how the company worked, not a fact to which he could personally attest because he never discussed the Iraqi contracts with Cheney.

A long-time critic of unilateral U.S. sanctions, which he has argued penalize American companies while failing to punish the targeted regimes, Cheney has pushed for a review of U.S. policy toward countries such as Iraq, Iran and Libya.

In the first expression of that new thinking, the Bush administration is campaigning in the U.N. Security Council to end an 11-year embargo on sales of civilian goods, including oil-related equipment, to Iraq.

U.S. officials say the new policy is aimed at easing restrictions on companies that conduct legitimate trade with Iraq, while clamping down on weapons smuggling and other black-market activity.

If the plan is approved, there would be "nothing to stop Iraq from importing [as many] oil spare parts as it needs" from Halliburton and other suppliers, according to a British official who briefed reporters on the proposal when it was introduced last month.

Cheney resigned as chairman of Halliburton last August. Although he has retained stock options worth about $8 million, he has arranged to donate to charity any profits from the eventual exercise of those options, Glover Weiss said.

Confidential U.N. documents show that Halliburton's affiliates have had broad, and sometimes controversial, dealings with the Iraqi regime.

For instance, the documents detail more than $2.5 million in contracts between Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co. and Iraq that were blocked by the Clinton administration. They included agreements by the firm to sell $760,000 in spare parts, compressors and firefighting equipment to refurbish an offshore oil terminal, Khor al Amaya.

The Persian Gulf terminal was badly damaged during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War and later was destroyed by allied warplanes during Operation Desert Storm. At the time, Cheney was secretary of defense.

Washington halted the sale because the facility was "not authorized under the oil-for-food deal," according to U.N. documents. Under the terms of the oil-for-food program, Baghdad is permitted to export crude oil, subject to U.N. supervision, through only two terminals, Ceyhan in Turkey and Mina al Bakr on the Persian Gulf.

The equipment was never delivered to Iraq, but Baghdad subsequently repaired the Khor al Amaya facility on its own.

A senior Iraqi oil ministry official, Faiz Shaheen, told an official Iraqi newspaper that Iraq would soon be able to export about 600,000 barrels a day of crude oil from the terminal.

Dumas said he was not aware of the dispute over the Khor al Amaya terminal. It was unlikely, he added, that Cheney or other top Halliburton executives would have known about the specific deals. "We had great independence in running our business," he said.

U.S. officials say the Bush administration is prepared to allow Iraq to resume exports from Khor al Amaya, as long as the earnings are placed in a U.N. escrow account that is used to pay for humanitarian supplies and further improvements to the oil industry.

"The U.S. attitude towards Iraqi exports has evolved considerably," said James A. Placke, a Washington-based analyst for Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm. "They used to tightly restrict Iraqi oil exports, and now there is no limitation on Iraqi exports."

Iraq's power to entice foreign investment, meanwhile, has increased with the soaring demand for oil. U.S. companies, which have been able to trade with Iraq only through foreign subsidiaries and middlemen, are wary of dealing with Baghdad but eager to get a piece of the action, according to industry sources.

"The American oil industry is very interested in trying to enter Iraq," said J. Robinson West, chairman of Petroleum Finance Co., a consulting firm. "But I think that they are quite respectful of U.S. policy towards Saddam Hussein. There is a very strong feeling that in fact he is the greatest threat to oil production in the Middle East."
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StupidMoniker · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by Deckard
Let's take out one word of this sentence...

"If you don't the Americans b**** and moan about unilateral action, throwing away the goodwill built up after 9/11, destroying our diplomatic ties to traditional allies, etc."
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Have you read a post by me, basso, texxx, et to that effect? I think not. Many do not believe that those things have happened, or are a problem. As such, the rest of you post is meaningless to me.

How is an action unilateral if there is more than one actor? Even if you don't count everyone in the coalition, (according to the liberals, most of them don't count) Britain certainly was involved in the action in Iraq.

What good is the "goodwill" that we built up if it only applies when countries are asked to do what they would have done anyway? If all of this goodwill and excellent ties does not buy us one unpopular decision, then what is it's value?

How are our traditional allies doing with stopping the genocide in Darfur while we are occupied elsewhere? I am not to concerned that we do not allow the countries that were in bed with Saddam dictate our foreign policy. What good are they doing around the world?

Sishir Chang · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by basso
if you equate the US with Japan in WW2 then i'm not sure we really have anything to discuss.
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I'm not equating the US with Imperial Japan. I'm equating the rhetoric your using justifying invading Iraq to the rhetoric used then.

basso · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by Sishir Chang
I'm not equating the US with Imperial Japan. I'm equating the rhetoric your using justifying invading Iraq to the rhetoric used then.
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fairly lareg difference in context tho, n'est-ce pas?

Sishir Chang · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by basso
fairly lareg difference in context tho, n'est-ce pas?
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Not exactly. Paranoia based upon questionable intelligence combined with a political messianic zeal (in one case to spread democracy to the Middle East in another to free Asia from western colonialism) a struggle fro crucial resources and a jingoistic appeal to patriotism all fueling a rush to war. There's a lot of similarities between the rhetoric of Imperian Japan, the PRC today in regards to Taiwan and with the justifications you've been stating.

basso · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by Sishir Chang
Not exactly. Paranoia based upon questionable intelligence combined with a political messianic zeal (in one case to spread democracy to the Middle East in another to free Asia from western colonialism) a struggle fro crucial resources and a jingoistic appeal to patriotism all fueling a rush to war. There's a lot of similarities between the rhetoric of Imperian Japan, the PRC today in regards to Taiwan and with the justifications you've been stating.
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i don't buy it- the comparison's valid on only the most superficial of levels, and only then if you believe rumsfeld=tojo, and Bush=Jiang/Hu

Deckard · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by basso
Deck, i hear your passion, and i know you must strongly believe this, but it's incredibly wrong-headed in my opinion. The US, or Bush administration, did not "throw away" the goodwill of our traditional allies. if anything, and giddy said as much, the reverse is true. I am, and have always been, an atlanticist at heart. my father emmigrated from denmark at the age of 20. i've made countless trips to western europe (and briefly to eastern, back in the day), spent months in germany and france in the '80s and early '90s, speak enough french and italian to get by (my german sucks), and i feel incredibly betrayed by the actions of the french in particular. Chirac and De Villepin completely sandbagged Powell at the UN. they led him to believe they would back the US, and at the last moment pulled the rug out from underneath him. this is a failure of US diplomacy how, exactly? je repete, the french were never going to have our backs in iraq. so i ask you, in what sense is a country an "ally" when it can't be counted upon in our hour of need? to try an blame bush for chicar's treachery is simply nonsensical.

has our country been weakened? absolutely not! we are more secure today than we were in the spring of 2003, and we will be even more secure once democracy has taken firm holdin iraq, and by extension elsewhere in the ME. the "security" of the status quo in the ME was a dangerous illusion, and i can't believe that someone as perceptive as yourself cannot momentarily put aside partisanship and examine the amazing work that has been accomplished in iraq and afghanistan. did we pay a sad price in america lives? yes. was it worth it? i believe it was. do i care what the french think? **** no. here's a more recent example of french perfidy:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1559253,00.html

a final thought. next month marks the 60th anniversary of VE day. there are still 62,000 American troops in Europe. They are stationed in 236 bases, including 13 training areas. The force has been reduced considerably over the years, especially after the Cold War ended in 1991, leaving over a quarter million American troops in Europe. But in 2015 there will still be 24,000 American troops over there, in 88 bases, and using four training areas. I guess FDR should never have invaded w/out an exit strategy.
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basso, where can I start? "Chirac and De Villepin completely sandbagged Powell at the UN." Well, Powell was sandbagged at the UN, but by Bush's closest advisors, who fed him bad (if one wants to be charitable) and altered/doctored intelligence with which to base his address to the world at the UN.

Allies and "in our hour of need?" What do you think an alliance is? Is it designed purely for the benefit of the premier power? Is it intended to be an alliance of friends and partners, who consult together to work out positions on issues with which agreement has been arrived at, through compromise, most often behinds the scenes, in order to present a united front to potential enemies? I believe a real alliance is the second path. The first is a charade. Our European allies, in the main, didn't believe in the course Bush had taken, and we certainly weren't "in our hour of need." What Bush did was of his own choice, and against a country which posed no threat to this country at that time.

We are more secure now? You really believe that? More secure than if we hadn't invaded and occupied Iraq? I think not. And I have repeatedly said that the Afghan War was needed, and accomplished brilliantly. It was also backed by those traditional allies you now chose to villify.

As for Britain, the Iraq War was a hard choice for Blair, but one he made, with an overwhelming majority in Commons, which, as you know, gave him carte blanche, unless it ended in disaster for Britain. Their system has a mechanism to remove the head of government, by his own party, if they think he has gone beyond the mandate he was given as Prime Minister. He has the support in Parliment, still, to maintain his policies. He doesn't have the support of the majority of the British people for those policies. Blair doesn't have to answer for that lack of support until the next election, unless he goes too far for his own party.

Amazing work in Iraq and Afghanistan, basso? In Afghanistan, yes, althought the situation there is more shaky than most realize. If something happens to Karzai, the country could easily slip back into chaos. There, I remain optimistic, and I don't know why you keep lumping Iraq and Afghanistan together, as if they are joined at the hip. They are not. Perhaps you and the other Bush supporters like to think they are, there being some luster from Afghanistan rubbed off onto the ongoing chaos in Iraq? I wouldn't know, but I wouldn't blame you for it, either.

As for FDR and his "exit strategy" in Europe, if you're going to make the silly comparison, why didn't you include Japan? I'm sure the Chinese, at least, must be glad that we still have tens of thousands of our military there. Come on, basso, that's not even worth talking about. There is no valid comparison between WWII and the adventure in Iraq, in my opinion.

Keep D&D Civil!!

DaDakota · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by Oski2005
Yet you don't seem to mind that Dick Cheney and Halliburton were in the middle of it as well.
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No, I hate that man, and mind a great deal.

Where did I say I don't mind Dick Cheney and his crooked Halliburton deals.

2 wrongs don't make a right...

DD

Sishir Chang · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by basso
i don't buy it- the comparison's valid on only the most superficial of levels, and only then if you believe rumsfeld=tojo, and Bush=Jiang/Hu
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Given their actions and rhetoric I think the comparisons not that far off. The comparison is off in terms of the degree of extremeness when it comes to Imperial Japan but close in terms of rhetoric. Very close in terms of both because the PRC hasn't invaded Taiwan but even they have specifically modeled their rhetoric after that of this Admin..

Sishir Chang · Apr 21, 2005

Originally posted by Deckard
Come on, basso, that's not even worth talking about. There is no valid comparison between WWII and the adventure in Iraq, in my opinion.

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I beg to differ.

I find much of Basso's rhetoric bears a striking similarity to that of Imperial Japan and present day apologists who argued that Pearl Harbor needed to be attacked to head off the threat of the US. Not to mention the blind trust of political leaders.

FranchiseBlade · Apr 22, 2005

Originally posted by basso
perhaps i shouldn't be surprised that you equate beheadings w/ naked pyramiding...
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Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that you ignore the more serious instances of murder rape, and physical tortureand instead try to focus on the more minor naked pyramids.

nyquil82 · Apr 25, 2005

unless you've seen it already, you won't get it

"There is no just cause at all for going to war."

PG: "That may be, but remember, anyone who doesn't want to go to war is gay."
Senator: I want to go to war
Senator2: I want to go to war too!
Basso: I was the FIRST to want to go to war!

DavidS · Apr 27, 2005

Originally posted by RocketMan Tex
Because if Bush would have sold it straight-out as a Liberation of the Iraqi People, the American people never would have supported it. He had to use WMD, and the innuendo that these WMD were an inevitable threat to the people of the United States, in order to get popular support for the invasion and subsequent occupation.
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Bingo!

Also note this...

The TV images of the WTC falling into rubble were framed by this administration to evoke personal images of MUSHROOM CLOUDS in NY.

What's a good hitch to mushroom clouds? WMD!!!!!!!

Or should I say....

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!!!!

Scary isn't it? Make you use you OWN imagination. Kind cool how that works on our emotions. Don't ya think?

Is this right or wrong?

Conservatives need to think about this. Because once you get mixed up in politics. The truth is obscured. Do conservative ask this? "What's in it for me? Collateral damage? Eh....who cares? I'm safer..."

Think about it.

All in the name of Jesus Christ, right? Religious wars! Don't ya love'em?

DavidS · Apr 27, 2005

Originally posted by basso
however they perhaps concentrated too much on the WMD angle.
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Do you think that was an accident? Chance? Fuke?

basso · Apr 27, 2005

Originally posted by DavidS
Do you think that was an accident? Chance? Fuke?
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Fuke. definitely.

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