I just got around to reading this thread, and yet again I read posts from members like this one from the always excellent Max, "when i say i can't believe i engaged this conversation, it wasn't anything personal...just that i hate engaging any real political discussion here anymore. immediately we should all be ashamed because we don't think like the other guy....one side rushes to defend its own; the other rushes to take the other side. bottom line: there is no real political discussion here anymore, as best I can tell. it's been squashed." Max, this is one case where I couldn't disagree more. This whole thread is political discussion. Some of it is emotional, some of it is a bit too personal, there's been some "trolling" from the usual fellow, although he even put in his two cents while doing his fishing. What do some of you think political discussion is? The reason we went to war, articulated by our President, anyway, has been debunked shortly after an election that said President won. Frankly, I'm surprised that the reaction here is so restrained. And I wish some of those members who have apparently been banned, if that was the case, could come back in here and post. I find that as confusing as the way this discussion has evolved. This is all pretty tragic. War without reason. Policy without reason. Death still in season. Keep D&D Civil!!
Well Saddam would not have been allowed to leave his sons or someone of his choosing as a successor. Bush would have had some say if not all of the say in who the successor would be, just like after SAddam was driven from power. Why would that have changed if Saddam left voluntarily. This administration doesn't want a democracy that doesn't have the results they want. They actually didn't want the Palestinians to have an election earlier because Arafat would have won and his legitimacy would have been increased. So if they only want elections where the winner is someone of their approval, the interest isn't in democracy, it is in having a cooperative leader. Do you believe that the Bush administration would have accepted a leader in Saddam's place that was unfriendly towards the U.S. interests?
Do you believe that the Bush administration would have accepted a leader in Saddam's place that was unfriendly towards the U.S. interests? What GWB wants and what GWB gets are two different things. Once the Shiites take democratic control over Iraq, GWB will only have himself to blame when they kicked our forces sorry asses out of their country and start their America / anti-West hating agenda.
Before I would have thought that was possible. Now I don't think there is any way Bush will go along with anything other than whatever his idea for a post Saddam Iraq was. I've seen things I didn't think our government was capable of come to fruition. I didn't think a first strike elective war was possible, but we did it. I didn't think that the reasons for going to war could all be found to be mistakes or lies, and yet nobody would be held accountable for it, and yet it has come to pass.
The ultimatum was for Saddam and his sons, so that takes care of that one. If you believe Bush would have been able to appoint a successor, then again you have no argument as to why we would have invaded had Saddam left. Congratulations. Why would they WANT a democracy that elects an unfriendly leader? That wouldn't make much sense. If the Iraqis replace one totalitarian regime with another, there's not much to do about it I think, but that doesn't mean we have to like it. As for wanting democracy vs cooperation, its very likely they wanted both, and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't think they would have invaded Iraq had Saddam left, no. Its just ridiculous. They spent their whole justification based on Saddam - he wants nukes, he's driving their WMD program, he's a genocidal despot, he supports terrorism, etc etc. Had he left and taken his sons with him, no - we would not have intervened.
The offer to Saddam was a bit of a red herring IMO. Bush had to know Saddam wouldn't leave. If he couldn't figure it out on his own he certainly had advisers who would tell him. He set up a deadline he knew wouldn't be met. Been gone from this thread, but I think Hayes asked why Saddam would have said he wanted to look more dangerous to Iran than he was. He said it a few months back, long after he was taken into custody, by way of explaining his motives in keeping his WMD status ambiguous. I brought it up because Hayes asked what motive he could possibly have. I was just relaying his answer to that question.
Yet had Saddam taken it we'd have had no reason to intervene. That's my point. Right. Saddam was so scared of Iran that he played brinksmanship games with the worlds major power. He was so scared of Iran that he gave them his entire air force. Sorry, that makes no sense.
I understand your point, but I think it's pretty well moot. We could give the same offer to Kim Il Jong and he wouldn't take it either. We could have given it to Hitler. Saddam had every reason to be scared of Iran if they believed he had little means of defending himself. When the threat of invasion became real he admitted he didn't have WMD's and opened his entire country, including his palaces, to inspection. Saddam was a survivalist. This was one of the points I made pre-invasion. I said then that if there were weapons he would have turned them over rather than being removed from power. He would have done anything short of leaving the country at that point to avoid an invasion. I'm pretty sure that's why the ultimatum involved him leaving. They knew he wouldn't. And they wanted the war.
Bush apologists can spin this any way they want. In the lead-up to the war it was clear that the Bush Administration was seeking any excuse to invade Iraq as soon as possible. They changed their rationale as it suited them and continue to do so to this day. Still the reason most people supported a harder stance against Hussein, if not a war (you can look up the pre-war poll numbers), was because Bush led them to believe that Iraq's WMD program posed an imminent threat to the US. They flat out *lied* to the American people about why we were going over there. They lied to the world. What do have to show for this deceit? Only the biggest strategic disaster in US foreign policy history. It's not even close. Instead of stabalizing the war on terror, the war has inflamed anti-American feelings all over the world while costing thousands of lives and treasure needlessly. Missiles didn't cause 9-11, it was angry people who felt they had nothing to lose by killing themselves and others to force the US out of the Middle East. Sound familiar? The number of those people has probably risen exponentially. Meanwhile, all of the resources *wasted* in Iraq could have been used to make US ports, nuclear facilities, water and food supplies truly secure, while rebuilding our intelligence services. US credibility is almost completely shot, even with our allies (you think the outage over US contributions to the Tsunami relief was really about that issue only?). This is even more important. It might actually be necessary to pre-emptively attack a country, or a force that poses a danger to the US, or our interests. Maybe next time Congress doesn't give authorization, or fund an action because Iraq has been such an unmitigated disaster. Maybe we can't even get Great Britain, or Australia (don't forget about Poland) to help us out next time. Moreover, in one fell swoop Bush turned a country the size of France without a discernable terrorism problem (Zarquai was in the area of Iraq controlled by the US, not by Hussein) to one of the most dangerous countries in the world and has left the US military, budget and economic future in serious and growing jeapordy. Hell, Bush has managed to actually *undermine* the concept of democracy in the Middle East because it is so chaotic in "Free" Iraq. Meanwhile, while the US is becoming weaker, China is starting to flex its muscles, North Korea has an operating nuclear program and the European Union has grown stronger. I am probably repeating what a lot of people have been saying in this thread, but I want to close by saying that the worst thing about this whole fiasco is the human cost. There are thousands of people in Iraq as innocent and beloved by their family as those in the World Trade center buildings who will never get a chance to live out their life. Where is the justice in that? There are thousands of brave, young soldiers who were taken on a fool's mission under false pretences. Think of how their loved ones feel everyday. Think how they must feel when their President refuses to attend any of their funerals, or admit any error, or change any policy to make their lives better. Think of those veterans who have come home without limbs, without benefits and without jobs all because they did their duty for a nation that cares more about the decal flag on their Suburban, or an exposed breast at the Super Bowl than the blood shed by their people.
But Bush would have still interfered. Whether he had to go in militarily or not doesn't matter. I said Bush could have gotten his own puppet in either way and thus still influenced oil or military bases. It wasn't about whether Bush would still have invaded it was about whether that proved that the whole gambit was or wasn't about oil or military bases. It is possible for Saddam to have left and for Bush to meddle and make sure the successor wanted to give oil and allow troops to be stationed there. Had Saddam taken the chance to leave the country then Bush still would have had a need to intervene if it was truly about oil and troop bases. That intervention may not have been through an all out invasion but intervention could have happened none the less.
HayesStreet; Do you honestly believe that the Admin honestly believed that Saddam would've left? As others have pointed out the attack started under the 48 hour deadline. That right there shows that the Admin never took their own ultimatium seriously. Now your response is that Saddam had already said he wasn't going to leave well then why bother with an ultimatum and why attack before the ultimatum? Saddam had been saying for years he wasn't going to leave so if they were going to make that one last play to show that the Admin really wanted to avoid war why attack before your own ultimatium is over? The only thing that can be read from this is that they were never serious about an ultimatium because the point of an ultimatium is to give them a deadline to act by if not then its nothing more than a ploy. Now I don't know what your opinion is of the UN but do you honestly think the US should militarily invade and occupy every country that violates a UN Resolution?
<b>Originally posted by BMoney Moreover, in one fell swoop Bush turned a country the size of France without a discernable terrorism problem (Zarquai was in the area of Iraq controlled by the US, not by Hussein) to one of the most dangerous countries in the world... </b> Hyperbole. There are a few very serious hotspots in Iraq where the "noble" insurgents will kill as many people (Iraqis included) so long as they kill at least one American. <b>I am probably repeating what a lot of people have been saying in this thread, but I want to close by saying that the worst thing about this whole fiasco is the human cost. There are thousands of people in Iraq as innocent and beloved by their family as those in the World Trade center buildings who will never get a chance to live out their life. Where is the justice in that? There are thousands of brave, young soldiers who were taken on a fool's mission under false pretences. Think of how their loved ones feel everyday. Think how they must feel when their President refuses to attend any of their funerals, or admit any error, or change any policy to make their lives better. Think of those veterans who have come home without limbs, without benefits and without jobs all because they did their duty for a nation that cares more about the decal flag on their Suburban, or an exposed breast at the Super Bowl than the blood shed by their people. </b> By most accounts most of the soldiers and their families don't hold these resentful attitudes that you imply. Certainly there are some, but I think the evidence would show that they are relatively few and far between.
Nope, but had he left I honestly believe there would have been no intervention. No, you've got the timeline mixed up. Intervention approaches. Administration gives ultimatum. Saddam refuses. Attack of opportunity. See? Uh, don't know where you see me saying anything like that. I am, in fact, a multilateralist. Would always prefer to work through a multilateral institution, however, I do also believe that in some cases you cannot get those institutions to act. In those cases unilateral approaches are justifiable (although this isn't one of them - don't know how you call a 80 country coalition unilateral, lol).
Pretty much it IS about whether or not we would have still intervened. I say no, hence the war wasn't about occupying oil fields. Your assertions about pseudo-control without intervention don't make any sense.
If Saddam was scared of Iran then why would he move his Air Force to Iran, instead of Syria? There has been much speculation about why he would hold out (prestige in the Arab world, he really WAS making WMDs etc) and the argument that he was scared of Iran just doesn't make any sense. Iran was not poised to invade Iraq, lol. I agree they thought there was little chance of him accepting exile. Nevertheless had he taken it I don't see us intervening. If your theory about his putting survival above all else you'd think he'd take the fat payoff and go to exile rather than go to court.
