the recruiting system is all fucked up. they pick on poor folks.

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Do not let your intelligence corrupt your wisdom.

That's hindsight, though, Areyou... Some people thought the present situation was an inevitable outcome of the invasion - I know I did - but others did not. Nobody can ever tell the future with 100% accuracy.

The question I've been asking myself since 2003 - and this goes back to the debate I've been having with Storman - is this... even if you knew what the outcome of invading Iraq would have been - would it still have been worth it if it avoided a larger war at some time down the road? We take it for granted that invading Germany in 1936 - with all of the troubles it would have caused - would have been worth it if it because it would have avoided World War II... so why not Iraq? If the US & UK hadn't gone in there and the Security Council had let Saddam off the hook, where would it have led? After all, if Britain had invaded Germany in 1936, it would have been tied down in an unpopular war of attrition against Nazi (and probably Communist) guerrillas and nobody would have even guess another Great War had been avoided.

Winston Churchill is today almost universally praised because he saw the danger posed by Hitler and wanted to stop it before it came to pass. If Britain had followed his lead in 1936, World War II would have been avoided. Of course, if he were Prime Minister then and Britain had followed his lead, he would have also have been as reviled as President Bush is today.
So how do we know Bush isn't another Churchill? What makes Churchill so great and Bush, well, not so great in public opinion?

Absolutely the sanctions had some teeth - in the early 90's - but the point is that thanks to the Iraqi efforts and the passage of time, their effectiveness was vastly diminished. As Duelfer noted, by 2000-2001, the Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of the sanctions and was in striking distance of a de facto end of the sanctions regime.

I know the chosen COA is far from perfect, but I've got to believe the present situation is far superior to one that would have left Saddam in charge of a rump Baathist state "safe haven" from which to cause mischief with the twin occupations to his north and south.

I'm not saying that Kosovo or Serbia proper should have been invaded, though.

What do you mean? I assume their occupants fled to the hills once the Pershmerga started getting active US military support.

That's a tough one, Storman... as much as I want to be a Churchill, I know tempermentally that I'm far closer to Baldwin. My natural inclination at the time was to let the inspections run their course and not to use force unless the Security Council passed another resolution to that effect. Knowing what I know now, though - and what Bush probably knew then - that wasn't going to happen. So, essentially, I would have ended up letting Saddam off the hook. Whatever happened, I wouldn't have wanted Saddam to get off the hook. But just because I wouldn't have wanted it, it doesn't mean I could have or would have stopped it from happening.

This is going to be a cop-out, but I can't really say what I would have done. The only thing I can truly say for sure is that I would have had a lot of sleepless nights. And that I'm obviously no Winston Churchill. My hat is definitely off to the man. And you know what? As much as I disagree with a lot of what President Bush has done, the more I try to put myself into his shoes, the more I respect him as well.

I view Cordelier as a fascist apologist and war crime defender and suggest people don't support his dishonest attempt to soften and legitimize the worst administration in American history.

Don't feed his corrupt defense of Bush.

Corde"liar" would be a more appropriate handle.

His efforts are identical to Nazi rationalizations of their actions in Europe.

You can debate intelligence all you want, Areyou. You can quibble and equivocate and weigh this option and that option until the cows come home. But in the end a decision has to be made... the difference between drifting into a consensus "lowest common denominator" and taking decisive action is what leadership is made of.

Leadership is Winston Churchill - in his so-called "wilderness years" as a lonely voice opposing appeasement. Even in 1940, when some argued that Hitler was too powerful and invincible and that Britain should seek the best peace terms it could obtain... Churchill didn't equivocate - he came into office offering nothing but "Blood, sweat, and tears". Whatever the odds. Whatever the price. Whatever the sacrifice. That's leadership.

Leadership is Margaret Thatcher in the Falklands War. Some argued that the islands were just an imperial anachronism. Or that they were too far away. Or that the Navy was too ill-equipped and too under-manned to fight the Argentines in their own back yard. But not the Iron Lady... she didn't bat an eyelid. She knew what was right and what was wrong, and she didn't hesitate to do right. That's leadership.

Saddam Hussein was evil personified. He not only had no compunctions about invading his neighbors, but he also didn't blink about using chemical and biological weapons against anyone who opposed him... even if they were his own people. If there in this world since the death of Hitler who more closely resembled Hitler in his intent and his actions, I don't know him. Bush could have let inspections go on - even after 11 years of obvious Iraqi violations.... he could have let Saddam get out from under the sanctions in the name of peace. But what then? Who can say where that would have led? Would history be any kinder to Bush if it grew to remember him only as a later-day appeaser or could have avoided a wider war by undertaking a smaller one? Who can say? If Iraq had managed to obstruct and delay and simply outlast the world on WMD's, what lesson do you think Saddam would have taken from that? Does anyone truly think he would have been happy to have left it that and chose a new course of peaceful and benevolent rule?

Bush knew who and what he was dealing with, and he dealt with it. To me, that's leadership.

You blindly tell everyone what they should do and who they should talk to, resorting to simplistic and slanderous characterizations... and then you have the gall to call me a Nazi?!? *LOL*

Judge a person's thoughts by what they say. Judge a person's character by what they do.

Which is exactly why I wrote what I did. You're not even a devil's advocate defender of Bush's war crimes - you're an enthusiastic and mendacious endorser posing as a sound and rational reviewer of all aspects of Bush's lies leading to Iraq.

You can be judged by a simple thing. You completely ignore and disregard all information showing Bush knowing lied about his case for war. (Just like Bush) You constantly try to lead the argument back to sophist analysis of manipulated UN resolutions. You show no notice of the fact that those UN edicts were based on a false case forced by Bush. The same people who publicly said "The UN is irrelevant".

What "ShittinMe" and "Cordelier" are showing us is the way governments abuse legal process to create a mountain of bureaucratic obfuscation that leads to self-promoting discussion of dubious government doings in order to credit the discussers with a higher formal degree of legality, but in the end it is just a very verbose and ill-intended filibuster desiged to create the lack of any accountability and outcome that inevitably results. But it becomes exceedingly offensive when it is used to create arguments validating government abuse of power and defiance of law as Cordelier so does.

Translation: My point of view is the only correct one. It's so correct that I don't even have to make a case for it. My truth is self-evident. If you disagree with my point of view, you're wrong. Not only are you wrong, but you're a liar. You're a mendacious liar. Unless you're a Devil's Advocate. Only if you're consciously arguing a point you know to be wrong can you possibly disagree with me and still be right. P.S.: If I use words like "mendacious", I can sound like I know what I'm talking about.

Translation: Nothing is simpler than my judgment and my judgment is that you're a liar. (Just like Bush - you're all liars) Did I mention you were mendacious as well? You're a mendacious liar. With your pants on fire.

Translation: I didn't understand a word about what you two were arguing about. I just know it was filled with complicated facts. Facts are evil. That makes complicated facts very very evil. And mendacious. You argue that Bush was right, but he broke the law. I'm not sure which law, but there are lots of big books with no pictures and they're all about the law. It had to be in one of them. In your face, you mendacious liar!

Cord, I had the same opinion of the Iraq war BEFORE we went in...why?

After we went to war with Iraq to knock them out of Kuwait, I developed interest in the Middle East to a degree that I hadn't before.

I studied more of the history of our relationship with Iraq and Iran and the region and I came to know about things such as the propaganda campaign that helped sell the war regarding Saddam's troops throwing babies out of incubators...propaganda with no basis in truth what-so-ever.

Propaganda regarding satellite photos showing Saddam's troops on the Saudi border poised to attack Saudia Arabia that we showed the Saudi's...troops that miraculously disappeared and, oh yeah, didn't show up in the commercial satellite photos from the same region and same time period.

I studied the terms for our support by the Arab countries and came to understand that they only agreed to support our mission if we agreed to not go in and get rid of Saddam.

As I mentioned before, at the time, I thought we should have gone into Baghdad but I came to learn these other things after that time.

I came to read the Bush Sr./Scowcroft clip on why we didn't occupy Iraq...and yes, I was one of those people who thought the present situation was an inevitable outcome of the invasion this last time...but beyond all that...

What really pisses me off is that prior to the invasion anybody who voiced doubt about Saddam's situation regarding WMD's and such was shunned or worse...I spent time on various forums arguing against the war and citing bits and pieces of "intelligence" or claims by people that should know...each and every time I was accused of posting lies, quoting "leftist liars" etc and so on.

I'm not surprised that the very claims that I made back then are now coming to light in the form of "internal debate"...sorry, but I don't buy the hindsight argument.

As to trying to portray Bush as another Churchill...are you suggesting that Churchill misrepresented the intelligence? I'm betting not, so let's not even go there.

As to the future of Iraq and what Bush II may have solved...let me share with you a sig line that I've used many times over recent years, one that I came up with...

"The irony of this whole mess in Iraq is that we can't train and equip our future enemy fast enough."

A larger war? Larger or smaller...one thing you can count on...there will be another one, and another, and another...the question from me is...what the hell makes anyone think we are going to stop them?

Why should we spend our lives and treasure on it?

(By the way...you aren't included in that "we"......thinkaboutit!!!)

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"All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."


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OBAMA/PEROT

"Faith in the ability of a leader is of slight service unless it be united with faith in his justice."
~ George Goethals

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"All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."


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OBAMA/PEROT