I told you so

POSTED BY: rue
UPDATED: Saturday, July 1, 2006 01:06
VIEWED: 11164
PAGE 6 of 15

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE

BROOKLYNBROWNCOAT

Monday, June 26, 2006 3:00 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
This is just a chance for everyone to try to get acknowledgement for 'being right'.

My entry:

There were no WMDs.

i think this war was less about wmd's and more about putting as many of the enemy in front of our weapons as possible. think about it- we do a b/s war to re-kick saddam's ass? not likely. But if all these insurgents, foreign fighters like saudis and syrians and iranians, can be wiped out over there before getting a chance to come over here, that's a good thing.
I wonder why we haven't nuked these people already- i mean, did Reagan use all our nukes somewhere without telling us? did we run out of bombs? no? so what are we waiting for? these people want to meet allah, we should be helping them by dropping 100 megaton greeting cards all over the mid east. i have to be careful; such strong opinions may land me in the troll room again- it seems the alliance that runs this site doesn't like dissencion........

SOUPCATCHER

Monday, June 26, 2006 3:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by brooklynbrowncoat:
i think this war was less about wmd's and more about putting as many of the enemy in front of our weapons as possible. think about it- we do a b/s war to re-kick saddam's ass? not likely. But if all these insurgents, foreign fighters like saudis and syrians and iranians, can be wiped out over there before getting a chance to come over here, that's a good thing.
I wonder why we haven't nuked these people already- i mean, did Reagan use all our nukes somewhere without telling us? did we run out of bombs? no? so what are we waiting for? these people want to meet allah, we should be helping them by dropping 100 megaton greeting cards all over the mid east. i have to be careful; such strong opinions may land me in the troll room again- it seems the alliance that runs this site doesn't like dissencion........

What you are conveniently forgetting is how the war was sold to the American people - that it was necessary because Saddam a) had WMD b) had ties to al Qaeda c) would give the WMD to al Qaeda who would attack us. This was billed as a necessary war.

[* edited to add: I recommend you read, "The One Percent Doctrine" by Ron Suskind (which Signym has quoted from in previous posts in this thread). Cheney's one-percent doctrine, which he formulated and expected the CIA and other agencies to implement, was that any threat that had a one percent likelihood of being legitimate should be acted upon. Saddam having WMD and ties to al Qaeda and using al Qaeda as surrogates to attack the US with WMDs passed the one-percent test. So we attacked - just like the architects of the war had planned on doing before 9/11. But pretty much any threat you can dream up passes that one percent test. The question you need to ask yourself is if our government should be implementing foreign policy based on 100 to 1 odds. I don't think we should. Your mileage may vary].

And it's not that the people on this site don't like dissention. It's that they, (or maybe I should just speak for myself) I, have a problem with genocide as a foreign policy. And this is exactly what you are calling for when you fantasize about, "dropping 100 megaton greeting cards all over the middle east." I don't think my country should be engaging in genocide. You do. Does it make you a troll? No. Does it make you horribly misguided and showcase an appalling disregard for human life? Yes.

[* edited to add: Just to add a little detail on my use of the word genocide. Genocide, amazingly, is really too weak a word. There are approximately 290 million people living in what is considered the Middle East (190 million if you ignore Sudan and Egypt). It takes a pretty sick puppy to get off on the idea of killing 190 million people. It would be the single worst atrocity committed in the history of the world. Is that how you want your country to be remembered?]

SIGNYM

Monday, June 26, 2006 6:31 AM

Quote:
i think this war was less about wmd's and more about putting as many of the enemy in front of our weapons as possible

So are you saying Bush lied? Because you seem to be saying that "we" would never invade Iraq if we knew the "real" reason, so Bush had to phony one up to stampede "us" in that direction. Right?

See below...

---------------------------------
Don't piss in my face and tell me it's raining.

SIGNYM

Monday, June 26, 2006 6:38 AM

Quote:
edited to add: Just to add a little detail on my use of the word genocide. Genocide, amazingly, is really too weak a word. There are approximately 290 million people living in what is considered the Middle East (190 million if you ignore Sudan and Egypt). It takes a pretty sick puppy to get off on the idea of killing 190 million people. It would be the single worst atrocity committed in the history of the world. Is that how you want your country to be remembered?

Do you want Browncoats to be remembered as baby-killing mass murderers? Or... is broooklynbrowncoat REALLY an Alliance Operative?? Hmmm. Placed in that frame, his (or her) statements make more sense....

---------------------------------
Don't piss in my face and tell me it's raining.

SOUPCATCHER

Monday, June 26, 2006 6:58 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Do you want Browncoats to be remembered as baby-killing mass murderers? Or... is broooklynbrowncoat REALLY an Alliance Operative?? Hmmm. Placed in that frame, his (or her) statements make more sense....

---------------------------------
Don't piss in my face and tell me it's raining.

Heh. Myself, I prefer to apply Occam's Razor to brooklynbrowncoat. If he walks like a sick puppy, and talks like a sick puppy, well then, by gum, he's a sick puppy. He very well could be a devious Alliance operative purposefully trying to sound like a sick puppy in order to try to tarnish the Browncoats by having them associated with his sick puppyhood. But I'm sticking with sick puppy.

.

On a tangent... Signym, have you read "The One Percent Doctrine"? I just finished it last week and found it highly informative. I'm a bit suspicious of Suskind and his insistence on interpreting people's personalities (methinks there might be some projection going on) but, other than that minor quibble, the information he got from former members of the CIA was disturbing. I actually found myself feeling sorry for Tenet (although that was mitigated by my thoughts that he made some huge mistakes wrt torture and turning suspects over to foreign governments). The book gave me a lot to think about. Especially in conjunction with Greenwald's, "How Would a Patriot Act?" and Boehlert's, "Lapdogs" which I also recently finished. [* eta: although the lack of sourcing/footnotes/endnotes on Suskind's book is not cool - so I guess I have more than a minor quibble with the book].

* eta: To sort of get back to the topic at hand... I'm going to put out a claim for a potential future, "I told you so." I believe that when historians look back on this period of time, Bush will be seen as the absolute wrong man at the wrong time. That, in the opening years of the escalated conflict between organizations like al Qaeda and western democracies (as ushered in by the September 11 attack), his actions led to an escalation of the conflict and an increase in the size of the opposition. His decisions radicalized many moderates and pushed them into the camps of our enemies. Much in the same way that the cynical hyping of a brown invasion by Mexicans in the US led to a legitimization, based on presentation in the mainstream press, of beliefs that had previously only been spoken aloud by fringe white supremacists, the invasion and occupation of an Arab country reinforced in many peoples minds the claims made by fringe radical extremists that the US and other western democracies were engaged in a war against Arabs.

HERO

Monday, June 26, 2006 1:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
So are you saying Bush lied? Because you seem to be saying that "we" would never invade Iraq if we knew the "real" reason, so Bush had to phony one up to stampede "us" in that direction. Right?

Who ever said the Iraq War was about WMDs and only WMDs.

Resolution 1441 specifically stated:

1) That Iraq was in material breach of the ceasefire terms presented under the terms of Resolution 687. Iraq's breaches related not only to WMDs, but also the known construction of prohibited types of missiles, the purchase and import of prohibited armaments, and the continuing refusal of Iraq to compensate Kuwait for the widespread looting conducted by its troops in 1991.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the above.

The US found hundreds of prohibited chemical munitions...thats a "stockpile". You say they don't count because they were found in caches around the country. I'm sure that Saddam, idiot that he is, wanted to keep all his weapons in one big warehouse where UN inspectors or US missiles could find them. But for some reason he dispersed them around the country.

We also found a number of missiles whose range was greater then that allowed. If you recall several where launched at US bases in allied countries during invasion. (I'm sure some of you noted with surprise that many on the left are suggesting the US strike North Korea for having a long range missile. I think they are only saying this because the President has indicated that we will not strike the missile. If he'd said or done otherwise, they'd be against it. The difference here is North Korea, unlike Iraq, is under no treaty obligation not to develop such a weapon, thus the strike would be a warrantless act of war. However if they fire the missile over Japan, then we can respond as needed up to and including a military strike or invasion.)

We also know they bought prohibited weapons from both France and Germany using money from the 'Oil for Food' Program and an extensive series of bribes to high ranking government officials in those countries. Officials who later obstructed US efforts to establish a larger international coalition that could have forced a peaceful capitualtion of Saddam in the face of a unified world.

And poor Kuwait still awaiting money for damages and the return of several thousand prisoners taken north in late 1990. We know they were alive in 1991, they never returned and no trace was found in 2003 (except a mass grave near the prison).

We know Iraq refused to cooperate with Weapons Inspectors. Iraq also made numerous attacks on coalition aircraft in the UN sponsored 'no fly' zones. Iraq was a haven for terrorists including a man named Al Zarqawi who arrived in Iraq in 2002 and began efforts to coordinate Al Quada training and support against Kurdish insurgents in the north. And for the hindsight 20/20 crowd, turns out that Saddam was systematically raping, torchering, and murdering his own people by the tens of thousands...

There, all nice and wrapped up in a pink bow (for the ladies and more sensitive fellas on the left) and minus the emotional ranting that we have all gone in for and I'm sure some of you can't help but respond with.

H

SIGNYM

Monday, June 26, 2006 1:55 PM

Wasn't this post a deadlock victim???

SIGNYM

Monday, June 26, 2006 1:57 PM

I love future "I told you so!"s. Nothing like putting your hypotheses on the line, eh? I think twenty years from now historians will look back on us a little like they look back on pre-1939 Germany: To mangle a phrase: "What were they thinking?"

No, didn't have time to read the book. I heard an extended review on the radio and read one in Salon. Real life is breathing down my neck this AM. TTUL.

---------------------------------
Don't piss in my face and tell me it's raining.

SIGNYM

Monday, June 26, 2006 2:03 PM

Hero, this is just stoopid. Did Iraq pose a credible imminent threat to the United States? What were they going to do- lob spoiled Sarin canisters 120 miles in our direction?

EDITED TO ADD: That's a little like me throwing a rotten tomato in your direction from 3000 miles. Yeah, the pavement is going to get splattered with spoiled goods and everyone knows just how impotent Saddam is. Cleanup on aisle three.

And by the way, what does cached spoiled WMD gain Saddam? That's getting all the negatives (having the UN find them and perpetuating sanctions) without any of the positives (actually being able to use them). Saddam was a lot of things, but he wasn't as stupid as ...erm...

Hero: "But, but we were just enforcing the UN resolution."
Signy: " Which the UN did not ask us to do, despite Colin Powell's strenuous plea to the General Assembly"
Hero "The UN is constrained by international politics. They didn't respond to their duty to defang Iraq."
Signy: "To defang Iraq from being a threat to the USA? Havent' we both figured that's not likely?"
Hero: "From being a threat to his neighbors. A regional threat"
Signy: "That's what UNMOVIC was all about. Too bad we didn't let the inpsection team finish the job"
Hero: "UNMOVIC was ineffective. Look at all the weapons they missed."
Signy: "But the important point was that Iraq did not have ongoing- or even credible "leftover" WMD capability and certainly no delivery capability to the USA."
Hero: "They could threaten their neighbors?"
Signy: "With what? Spoiled goods? But tell me, who were we defending if not ourselves? Israel? Saudi Arabia? Kuwait? UAE"
Hero: "{inaudible}"
Signy: "If we're defending Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and UAE well then it pretty much comes down to oil doesn't it? If we're defending Israel then aren't we just reflecting the interests of the Zionists in our government: Perle, Feith, Wurmser, Abrams, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz?"
Hero: "Saddam was a tyrant"
Signy: "But so is the King of Saudi Arabia. In fact, so is President Musharaf of Pakistan. They imprison and torture people as well."
Hero: "Saddam was worse. He has mass graves all over Iraq."
Signy: "And Sudan President al-Bashir is even worse than that. Why aren't we invading HIM?"
Hero: "We only have so much military capability."
Signy: "Hmmm... yes. I wonder- will you remember that if Bush decides to bomb Iran? Doubtful.

But now that our imaginary conversation has wandered long and far... what does this have to do with 'But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.' and 'We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat'? As soon as the argument for WMD falls apart you shift to another argument- pretty much like the Bush administration. But the more you argue the OTHER arguments, the more obvious it becomes that Bush sold us a bill of goods."
Hero "......."
---------------------------------
Let me play devil's advocate. I think I can do a better job.

CHRISISALL

Monday, June 26, 2006 2:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:

1) That Iraq was in material breach of the ceasefire terms presented under the terms of Resolution 687. Iraq's breaches related not only to WMDs, but also the known construction of prohibited types of missiles, the purchase and import of prohibited armaments, and the continuing refusal of Iraq to compensate Kuwait for the widespread looting conducted by its troops in 1991.

And poor Kuwait still awaiting money for damages and the return of several thousand prisoners taken north in late 1990. We know they were alive in 1991, they never returned and no trace was found in 2003 (except a mass grave near the prison).

So....Iraq holds prisoners illegally, kills a bunch of 'em, and rubs our face in the fact that it won't co-operate or follow the mandates- they get badder and badder, and we wait with thumbs securely inter-anal until...Oh my! That threat of destroying the WORLD TRADE CENTER!! It was REAL!!!
Hollow crap.

Hero, you have no logic, you follow blindly, you're an appologist and a lackey. And you won't stop for a second.
In your next life, on your deathbed a hundred years from now, you'll be saying that the beginning of the 21st Century was a glorious period, no matter what history says or how events played out.

I'm just posting to amuse myself now, some peeps never will get it Chrisisall

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE