Our Mission in Iraq
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Thursday, June 12, 2025 06:42
VIEWED: 5443
PAGE 6 of 7
Merchant Marine,
1. the opposing CIA intelligence report said that Saddam had destroyed the WMDs during the 90s to avoid being discovered. If true, this would explain his initial hostility and growing acceptance of the idea. It's important also to realize that mid east leaders plan a
brink game. They assume if they cave, that more demands will immediately follow. They do this because it is what they have come to expect. It's like the christian group Jill Carroll was captured from, after the Iraqis released five women, the terrorists didn't release
Carroll, but instead went and captured four more of her people and made more demands. I imagine as a mideast leader this only has to happen to you once ro twice before you learn not to budge at all.
2. Don't get me started on the OIL for FOOD program. Argh. I remember when I first heard about the idea. WTF? Let me get this straight. We're going to blockage their food, then the UN will allow them to have food if the give up their oil. Isn't that just a mugging?
Only wwe don't give it to them. we give it to their evil despot. I was astounded that an 'investigation' into the 'corruption' was needed. It was an inherently corrupt idea.
3. I had forgotten about that. But the French role in Rwanda was dispicable.
4. I would quibble about Kosovo et al. Milosevic was evil, and needed to be removed, but there were a lot of little things that annoy me about it. I don't know if you remember Larry Craig's angle on Clinton, who violated an arms embargo to allow Iran to funnel arms
to suspected Al Qaeda on the muslim side because Clinton wouldn't a different territorial outcome. Later there were allegations that involved more Halliburton pipeline contracts, I don't know if that for the reason. Basically, overall, Yugoslavia was an obvious least
death intervention, but it should have been done sooner and stronger. Like with Iraq there was a least death argument towards the end, but it didn't follow. There was still a lot of death after we were done bombing, a lot of Al Qaeda types coming in, it was not what
the people on the ground wanted. I talked to two Kosovars both of whom thought that the US troops stationed in the eastern mediterranean should have been deployed to Yugoslavia, and probably as early as '93-'94.
I have a friend who was on the UN diplomatic corps for Bosnia. In door to door warfare, one city had become completely populated, every last person was dead or fled. The next city down, it was just starting. So they took all the muslims from the next city, and moved them to the dead city. They then surrounded the city with tanks while they set it up. He told me, once it was set up, they sent the tanks away. He was appalled. The following night, Serb raiders came through and excecuted the entire population, they were totally defenseless and got slaughtered.
I guess my basic feeling is the UN is a disaster. They are way too timid, they get at everything half cocked. No, they go 1/4 cocked, or possibly 1/10.
The problem is I don't like war, excessive needless war, and I really don't like Clinton war, and Bush/Cheney war is pretty close to Clinton war. Our leaders say "oh the combat value of the footsoldier is negligable compared to air cover."
What people don't get about boots on the ground is: They are needed to restore law and order. If you just bomb something into oblivion, you create chaos. If you never repair that chaos, you still have that chaos. You can't fight the soldierless war and expect to have an orderly result. In Kuwait we had boots on the ground and we got an orderly result. In Iraq we really don't, and we have chaos. I'm not stomping for the democrat troop boost because I think they just want it so they can invade Iran. But this is no way to win a war.
5. Perot would have made a great president, but he didn't want the job. He flirted with being out so that he could force Clinton to adopt his fiscal plan. I'm not guessing here, I worked for the Perot people. It went like this.
1. He basically said to Clinton "
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P.S. I'm a real republican. Not like my state's senior Senator Specter, who is a democrat in republican's clothing (except when it's convenient to be pretend to be otherwise).
How sure are you?
Arlen Spector is one of the most republican republicans on the Senate, IMHO. If you study the history of the republican party, and it's largely unchanging position for 200 years from J.Q. Adams to George Bush Sr., you'll find that these guys have a lot in common with Mr. Spector.
Objectively, I think the most republican member of congress is either Dick Lugar or John Warner. That's most in line with traditional republican values, not to say I most often agree with them, though I often do. I would say the one I most often agree with is Larry Craig, or possibly Chuck Hagel. Lincoln Chafee is solidly to the left of me, but still a good republican.
Bush is a republican in name only. His policies more closely match the historic platform of the democratic party, which is not surprising because he's really Clinton.
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This is where you lose me. I see them as diametrically opposed... both personally and politically (politically, both socially & economically). Could you clarify (not for the point of argument, but I'm curious as to how you've arrived at this view)?
Okay. Are you a Buffy fan? If so then this should mean something: Ben is Glory.
Yes. It will take some doing, and it took me a long time to arrive here, and now I'm convinced of it, but can I make it a convincing argument? I'm not sure. I'll try to start here. I've posted a lot of this stuff before. I'll try to be as succinct as possible:
1. Bush is, to a large extent, Cheney. Cheney makes almost all the policy decisions of Bush. Bush himself is nowhere near skilled enough to actually govern, I think this goes without saying.
2. Cheney was extremely influential in the Clinton admin. Clinton merged Halliburton with the military, and gave extensive contracts to Cheney, who was it's CEO. There are even accusations, made by republicans on the Senate floor, that Clinton set policy, and even gave orders to subvert policy, in order to secure contracts for Cheney.
3. So, for starters, both Admins have at least a strong policy influence coming from the same man.
4. Many of the other players are the same. I fyou look at the constituent members of the think tanks making up policy, they date back to 70s democratic groups, and some were in clubs with the Clintons and key Clinton supporters in the Senate
5. The Clinton/Bush transition had the lowest number of position changes in the so called "shake up" of any in recent memory.
6. Bush's domestic policy has been based on heavy federal spending on things like healthcare, and Bush's healthcare proposal which he just made in his state of the union address was *actually written by Hillary Clinton*, as in, I kid you not. This kind of federal management policy differs only in revenue source, Bush's borrow-and-spend is just like the old democrat tax-and-spend, and is going to pay for the same things as tax-and-spend was intended to.
7. Bush has the same allies as Clinton, rather than the traditional US allies, he garners most of his support form communist china and the institution of the EU.
8. Bush's military plan is the same one Clinton was following: Small, low boot number combat, particularly with a mid-east focus, and set to establish a MidEast Union, by taking our Afgh. Iraq, Iran, and Syria. This has been the plan in thes circles for a while. Bush often quotes Clinton to make it look like his agenda is bipartisan. It's not, it's a social democrat agenda, which Bush is following.
9. Bush has not only threatened to veto a number of Republican House and Senate bills, an unheard of thing for a sitting Republican president. The last time there was a president who opposed his own party this much it was John Tyler, who got kicked out of Whig party for it, as a sitting Whig president. Ironically, the opposition to Bush policies in the House and Senate comes strongly from repu
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You'll probably be surprised to know that I believe the current business in Iraq falls into the latter category -- and it probably could've been resolved with a good, old fashioned coup or assassination. Nonetheless, hindsight is always perfect, and now that we're there, we need to finish the job right or it was all for nothing.
Latter category? You lost me here. I hope you don't mean terrorism. Nothing's worse for a terrorist than and evil dictatorial police state. Saddam Hussein may have offered money ($20,000) to terrorists, but Iraq was hardly a terrorists best friends. Terrorists like places that they can organize armies of mass hate and destruction, places like Afgh., and Somalia, places already in anarchy. Objectively, the US is a haven for terrorists relative to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, because we allow our citizens freedom. And one of the things we might chose to do with that is to become terrorists. Look around the world where terrorism appears, it's in the places with the greatest personal freedom, the US for instance has had many terrorist attacks. Far more than police states.
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I do believe, however, that Zarqawi would breed terrorists regardless. The terrorists strike me as the kind of people who don't need an excuse to act.
And he can do it all he wants in Jordan, which is a hole in the sand. I don't want him to have Iraq, which is sitting on trillions of dollars in oil reserves, with which Zarqawi could purchase a nuclear arsenal.
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Eventually, (hopefully soon) I believe the Iraqi people will be able to stand on their own and keep this to a minimum. Unfortunately, I think it'll always be part of that region, but the aim has to be to control and minimize it as best as possible.
I would hope so to. But also, I'm realistic. The real threats to Iraq long term are: Al Qaeda, Iran, and China. China has openly expressed an interest in funding and arming Iran to invade and conquer Iraq, they did this back in 2000 or something, it was printed in the people's daily, as in 'this is a good idea, it's public policy.' I remember reading it at the time. Zawahiri has made it clear that he wants that oil flow to fund Al Qaeda, and he has more than enough buyers lined up. Since the prize is extremely valueable, China would be willing to spend a lot of money, and various Arabians would invest in Al Qaeda, even billions of dollars if they thought it would pay off. Iraq is going to need one Mother of God Defense, not just a few guys in matching trousers.
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How can this be anything but speculation, though, unless Bush and his inner circle have confided in you (or elsewhere, where I haven't seen it)? On what do you base this view? Again, not for the sake of argument, but just to satisfy my curiosity.
Intellectuals publish things all the time. Read up on the PNAC crowd, newamericancentury.org and the people listed there, and what they used to do. As a regular visitor I remember when they used to have all this stuff posted, but I've also researched it, they wrote about this stuff then too, they were trying to push Carter into a war in Iran, these same people. This is old stuff. War on terrorism is new stuff, and they had to be dragged into it kicking and screaming by Dick Clarke and some of the boys at military intelligence.
I'm not really given to much speculation. But it's not my job to convince you, just a nod, here's what I understand: These guys, wolfowitz, perle et al, were socialist bent on a troskyite global social revolution in the 70s, and nothing has changed since then, except that they are appointees of a president, who is, sadly, nominally republican.
What I think of them, Wolfowitz, Perle, et al, personally, for what it's worth, I think they're commies. They don't give a damn about freedom, personal or otherwise, and could care less about the private sector, American business, the advancement of technology, progress, or America for that matter. I have no use for them.
[qupte]But, I would imagine that after a while they would've seen th
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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Latter category? You lost me here.
I was referring to your reasoning for using military force -- your "least death" barometer. Your latter category was "If military action results in more death then no military action, then no military action should be taken."
I was suggesting that Iraq could've possibly fallen into this category, at least in the short term, and that immediate military action might not have been necessary at the time it was taken. However, we have no idea what Saddam might've eventually done -- which could've easily put Iraq into your former category. Like I've said, hindsight is 20/20.
The reason you probably didn't know what I was referring back to was the numerous paragraphs of my response between your quote on "least death", and my referring back to it as I did.
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I was referring to your reasoning for using military force -- your "least death" barometer. Your latter category was "If military action results in more death then no military action, then no military action should be taken."
Sorry, got turned around there. Yeah, I was unclear on Iraq, but once it was clear to me where the idea originally came from and why it had been concocted, which was essentially in socialist think tanks of the 70s, and to bring liberalism to the mid-east, the whole idea lost charm for me, or perhaps, even a reason to exist. Later, when more data about Hussein and his status as a fumbling dictator came into light, it was clear that Hussein was like an old Stalin, mass murderer of the past, who could probably be sedated. Or edged on into more mass murder, as Clinton had done. But the real threat here was what a destablized Iraq would become Alqaedistan.
True, this is hindsight, but the folk over at the CIA and military intelligence has made a plenty enough convincing argument for me that this was pretty much know, Saddam could be controlled and replaced, but that Cheney and his eggheads were overly selective in choosing data which supported their position.
When I had to go back and think, well, why would they have done that? What's better about a US imposed state than an internal coup? And that's when I realized that this was never about Saddam, just like it was never about Al Qaeda. It was about three things:
1) Liberalizing the Middle East, about which I do no care, but has been a key concern of the folks at PNAC for some time.
2) Consolidating the Middle East into a Mid East Union, in preparation for transfer to a one world govt. I'm not fond of govt., and I fear a one world police state, and also the war which would lead up to it, but I also think this idea hasn't been openly discussed enough to make it public policy.
3) To gain control of the oil. I think the purpose of this is not so much to get rich as to leverage the world, but I think it's an ill conceived idea. Holding the Middle East is a lot harder than taking it, and even if you hold it, it's not the world's lone oil supply. Once you have the world's oil supply, you have to confront the reality that the world response might be to move to alternative energy. Don't be fooled. These technologies are not 'still on the drawing board' and 'not ready for market.' They've been ready to roll for decades now, they just keep improving on them. I have a design for a car myself that I intend to build someday which never requires a recharge and burns no fuel. I'm sure the boys at Honda and GM have a few in store more than I do.
All of this makes the idea of their arguments of the threat of Iraq to its own people or the outside world, as well as the data backing up those claims, automatically suspect.
That said, I don't mind seeing a lefty looney like Saddam gone, I just don't want to see him replaced with Al Zarqawi.
I guess a final note on this, let's kill this whole plan before things get any worse. We're going to need a massive defense just to secure Iraq from the terrorists, and it would be best if that was an international coalition and well trained and well armed Iraqis.
But let's not invade Iran. Iran is already a capitalist democracy, whatever the flaws, and it's leader, however much of an asshole he actually is, is not really in any way a threat to his neighbors, even Israel. Iran is not a particularly aggressive warlike nation, and is completely surrounded by hostile nuclear powers, two of them being the united states. An Iran with an arsenal of nukes would still be a nation backed into a corner by enemies with superior firepower, in short, nothing more than they are today.
As far as nuclear power goes, we signed a treaty in the 1970s allowing Iran to develop and build nuclear power if they do it on their own in exchange for not seeking nuclear weapons. There's not even, as of yet, any evidence that they are in violation of that.
The only reason Iran is on the nuke path is that they are not d
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Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
I have a design for a car myself that I intend to build someday which never requires a recharge and burns no fuel. I'm sure the boys at Honda and GM have a few in store more than I do.
What power source does it run on? Just curious?
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If you're ready to lose American lives, feed international terrorism and bankrupt the US economy, (as well as destroy the image of America worldwide,) in order to bring Women's Lib to Persia, then well...
Don't tell Cartoon that! (s)he and buddy Prey will descend upon you from on high!
"You're flexing your e-penis! Too much Virtual Testosterone! You're an Islamic terrorist! We need the Oil in Iraq, that's justification enough! Kill the heathens! Burn 'em, Burn 'em all!"
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear
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It's electric, more than that I'm not going to say. But my point was just, there is not shortage of new designs for non-oil consuming vehicles. If you controlled all the oil and withheld it from NK or somewhere, they'd just say "Okay, screw oil."
As far as a money making proposition, oil is big money on a personal or corporate level, but it's nothing compared to a typical federal budget. Bush is going to have wasted $20T by the time he's done. Controlling Iraq is only going to generate $30B a year. Considering the estimates are the conflict will have cost us $2T in the end, and an extra $6T in loss of business, it's only money for the people who happen to own oil companies, it's nowhere near a net financial gain, it's a mega mammoth loss.
Anyway, me and cartoon were getting along fine. It's you liberals who have to duck :)
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Originally posted by citizen:Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
I have a design for a car myself that I intend to build someday which never requires a recharge and burns no fuel. I'm sure the boys at Honda and GM have a few in store more than I do.
What power source does it run on? Just curious?
May I suggest bullshit?
Err no that isn't a snide remark, he lives in the country and biomass methane, from all kinds of organic waste sources has potential for powering vehicles.
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DT, I'm not trying to steal your design, I was just curious 
...
I hold out hope for alternate energy; we've got busses in London running off of Hydrogen which is perfectly safe now. I believe there are similar schemes in operation in New York for instance, but with taxis?
All they kick out is water, though I hear water vapour can also cause global warming, but I'm not losing sleep over it. I mean it's got to be better than the cocktail of greenhouse gasses and carcinogens emitted by petrol burning...
And I was getting along fine with Cartoon for awhile, until I spent too long disagreeing with him for the thin facade of Moderate to contain the vicious extreme right wing Christian fanatic within.
It'll happen too you too, in fact it already has if you look up the thread a bit. Don't say I didn't warn ya.
And I'm a Liberal Libertarian, which means left wing in Britain, and simultaneously left and right wing in America, as you point out .
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear
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Citzen,
Many years ago, I came up with a design for a car, which I sent to a scientist, who then passed it off as his own. I'm not going to post this one to the web, where it will automatically become public domain. I was merely pushing the idea that the usual counter argument "the technology's not there yet" is a fallacy.
No, it's not Fletch's idea, though someone has recently developed such a vehicle, and it's not a bad idea. This is a better use than putting it into our water or food supply.
Upstate we are actually making leaps and bounds on the idea of alternative energy. We have a town which is entirely powered by it's own wind farm, and another with a housing community in which all the houses are self sufficient by having solar panelled roofs which feed massive batteries in the basement. There are corn oil cars and a waterfall provides most of the city's power as you may know. It may come from having money but no oil.
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