Bush was right

[TCPluto]

Was was not necessary - according to Ms. Rice, the regime was on the way out.
Rich::

Help me here Richie. Did you mean to say "War was not necessary...."?

 

[salmoneous]

We ignored the UN (aka Russia, China, Germany and France) because they were "in the tank" for Saddam. They were up to their necks in oil......for food, and had every financial incentive for keeping him in power. If anything, we had too much patience and should have not given Saddam 2 months lead time to move the WMDs to Syria.

Dawn, just curious, do you realize any of the following...

1) Opposition within the UN to an invasion of Iraq came from over a hundred countries, not just the 4 you mention.

2) The vast majority of the people in those countries were opposed to an invasion, while only a handful of people were involved in the corruption. There are no direct ties between corruption within the oil-for-food program, and oppostion to the invasion of Iraq.

3) There is no credible evidence that Saddam moved any WMD to Syria. There are montains of evidence that there were no WMD in Iraq prior to the war.

4) If WMD were moved to Syria, we would be total fools to not go after them. Do you believe us to be total fools?

 

[toto2]

B. Please go back and research the murder and mayehm that was taking place in Iraq before we arrived. Isn't that why Saddam is on trial?


No. Saddam is being charged with suppressing an assassination attempt on his life in the 80's and killing dozen's of the "insurgents." Amazing isn't it? Hard to believe? We have so much on him he is being charged with crimes from the 80's!!! When he was our buddy! OK? Try to pay more attention next time. He is not on trial for anything that was happening when we arrived.

And to add to this part of the dicussion , I will cut and paste something I've put on another thread :


Yes , Saddam has a few crimes under his belt , but:

"We now know who supplied Saddam Hussein with materials of mass destruction; where his military regime, notorious for atrocities against Iraqis, Iranians and Kurds, acquired helicopters, germs and lethal chemicals -- an arsenal of terror. Iraq acquired its weapons of mass destruction from the United States, from Germany, France and Britain as well -- the very countries leading a weapons inspection of Iraq.

Last month the Iraq Weapons Inventory included a long list of Western and U.S. companies (Union Carbide, Honeywell, Dupont, SpectraPhysics, Bechtel are some mentioned in “The Nation”, 1/13/2003) that supplied Saddam with deadly and dual-use material. Hoping to disguise its own culpability in Iraq's past war crimes, the U.S. suppressed the list, but the dossier was leaked to a German newspaper, “Die Tageszeitung”.

More information trickled onto the back pages of “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post”. The main facts are no longer in dispute. In violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 (which outlaws chemical warfare), the Reagan-Bush administration authorized the sale of poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, from anthrax to bubonic plague, throughout the '80s. In 1982, while Saddam Hussein constructed his machinery of war, Reagan and Bush removed Iraq from the State Department list of terrorist states.

According to newly declassified documents mentioned in “The Washington Post Weekly Edition” (1/6-12/2003), Iraq was already using chemical weapons on an "almost daily basis" when Donald Rumsfeld met with Saddam Hussein in 1983, consolidating the U.S.-Iraq military alliance.

Subsequently, the Pentagon supplied logistical and military support; U.S. banks provided billions of dollars in credits; and the C.I.A., using a Chilean conduit, increased Saddam's supply of cluster bombs. U.S. companies also supplied steel tubes and chemical substances, the types of material for which the Security Council is now searching.

As late as 1989 and 1990, according to a report from U.S. representative Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio), U.S. companies, under permits from the first Bush administration, sent mustard gas materials, live cultures for bacteriological research, to Iraq. U.S. companies helped Iraq build a chemical weapons factory, and then shipped Hussein a West Nile virus, hydrogen cyanide precursors, and parts for a new nuclear plant.

The infamous massacre at Halabja -- the gassing of the Kurds -- took place in March 1988. On September 19, sixth months later, U.S. companies sent eleven strains of germs, four types of anthrax to Iraq, including a microbe strain, called 11966, developed for germ warfare at Fort Detrick in the '50s. (Judith Miller provides a partial account of the sordid traffic in U.S. chemicals and germs in her book, “Germs: Biological Weapons And America’s Secret War”.)

Dow Chemical (infamous for its napalm in the Vietnam War) sold large amounts of pesticides, toxins that cause death by asphyxiation. Twenty-four U.S. firms exported arms and materials to Baghdad. France also sent Hussein 200 AMX medium tanks, Mirage bombers, and Gazelle helicopter gunships. As Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage testified in 1987: "We cannot stand to see Iraq defeated."

The vast, lucrative arms trade in the Middle East laid the groundwork for Saddam's aggression against Kuwait. Without high-tech weapons from Europe and the U.S.--from the very countries now conducting an arms proliferation investigation -- Iraq's wars against Iran and Kuwait would never have taken place.

Defending the Indefensible

U.S. officials take a dismissive attitude to revelations about complicity in Saddam's military reign of terror in the '80s. Officials tell us that American corporations did nothing wrong when they shipped chemicals, germs, nuclear materials to Iraq. After all, they say, Saddam was a U.S. ally in the '80s.

The entire U.S. arms trade is based on a heinous premise: that atrocities and war crimes in the Third World are acceptable so long as they fit within U.S. global strategy and aims. Saddam's crimes were invisible in the '80s. The same crimes became grist for front-page demonization of Saddam in the '90s, after -- and only after --Saddam threatened Western access to oil.

George Orwell's brilliant essay (“Notes on Nationalism”) on empire and nationalism applies directly to the mendacity of the Bush administration. "Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage -- torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians -- which does not change its moral color when it is committed by 'our' side… . The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

Now the world is faced with a tragic irony: The world's leading merchant of death is taking us to war to stop arms proliferation in the very region to which it shipped chemicals and arms for over ten years."

From:http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/time.html
__________________
visit my fondation :http://www.ptitslutins.org/en/accueil.html

 

[dcentity2000]

Help me here Richie. Did you mean to say "War was not necessary...."?

Indeed I did. I apologise to the international community as internet is serious business



Rich::

 

[dcentity2000]

Without the benefit of hindsight, which we haven't perfected as yet, no one could have known then all that we know now. I'm not so sure it would change anything, other than an earlier entry.

Oddly enough, the causes for war were widely dismissed by the international community prior to invasion.

If only you had listened!

I take great solace in knowing that war apologists such as yourself are in the minority by a great margin.

But don't be scared! You're not on your own! Terrorists also support the war



Rich::

 

[LuvDuke]

The same can be said for the liberal mainstream press, and the spewing forth of all the ka-ka they report, right? You're position is so widely supported, you couldn't even get Al Franken and Air America to live on its own. Wait, that means no one was interested in what they had to say...interesting.

More talking points babble from the Limbaugh school of pharmacology.

 

[JoeEpcotRocks]

Fail!

Everybody, come quick! This is the best that Joe can do! He didn't even provide a counter argument! Time to score some wins



Rich::

Sure, I've been countering your arguments (the same one's we've been having for close to a year on the DIS now!).

You choose to ignore the bribes issue, basically saying the equivalent of "so what."

The international community ignored Iraq because:
1) Some took bribes or had special deals with Saddam, and/or
2) They couldn't care less about other nations or their people.
3) They think appeasement will defeat terrorists.
4) They would rather wait until WWIII breaks out to so something.
5) They "trust" Saddam even though he had WMD and failed to dislose its whereabouts or disposal.
6) They didn't care that Saddam supported terrorists.

When I was a student, I wondered how people could let the Holocaust happen. Now I know.

I'm glad our President, our troops, and allies took action. People are glad Saddam is gone, but they won't give any credit to those who ousted him.

People don't like terrorists either, but so many think if we ignore them, coddle them, appease them, "understand" them, or let them kill other people instead, then all will be well.

 

[CharlesTD]

It was all planned and planted by the powers that be to make it look better for the administration.

 

[LuvDuke]

Oddly enough, the causes for war were widely dismissed by the international community prior to invasion.

If only you had listened!

I take great solace in knowing that war apologists such as yourself are in the minority by a great margin.

But don't be scared! You're not on your own! Terrorists also support the war



Rich::

It wasn't just the international community, at least for those of us on this side of the pond.

On February 24, 2001, Colin Powell made this statement that sanctions had worked and there was no weapons programs in Iraq:

"We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/powell-cairo.htm

Condoleeza Rice, in an interview on CNN said that Saddam Hussein had not rebuilt his military capability and didn't even have control over his entire country.

Here's what Rice had to say on July 29, 2001:

"But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

Just 2 examples of Powell and Rice telling the truth before the truth became inconvenient for the Bush administration.

 

[TCPluto]

More talking points babble from the Limbaugh school of pharmacology.

You're going to have to do better than that.

Yes, it seems possible that Rush may have had a prescription drug dependency issue to deal with. He doesn't hold public office though, does he?

But his sin is not on the level of the murdering talking wonder Ted Kennedy. Or the perjurin', cigar soakin', dress stainin' (in the oval office bathroom) Willie Clinton.

Those crimes are real. And by public officals, while in office. They are the face, and voice, of the Democrat Party. While it is a big face (either one or both are fairly huge), it's no pretty.

 

[chobie]

You're going to have to do better than that.

Yes, it seems possible that Rush may have had a prescription drug dependency issue to deal with. He doesn't hold public office though, does he?

But his sin is not on the level of the murdering talking wonder Ted Kennedy. Or the perjurin', cigar soakin', dress stainin' (in the oval office bathroom) Willie Clinton.

Those crimes are real. And by public officals, while in office. They are the face, and voice, of the Democrat Party. While it is a big face (either one or both are fairly huge), it's no pretty.

You're really obsessed with that stained dress aren't you? You never pass up an opportunity to mention it.

 

[LakeAriel]

You're going to have to do better than that.

Yes, it seems possible that Rush may have had a prescription drug dependency issue to deal with. He doesn't hold public office though, does he?

But his sin is not on the level of the murdering talking wonder Ted Kennedy. Or the perjurin', cigar soakin', dress stainin' (in the oval office bathroom) Willie Clinton.

Those crimes are real. And by public officals, while in office. They are the face, and voice, of the Democrat Party. While it is a big face (either one or both are fairly huge), it's no pretty.

You know they realize they have nothing to say. It's back to blaming Clinton and Kennedy!

 

[TCPluto]

You know they realize they have nothing to say. It's back to blaming Clinton and Kennedy!

Just a little nudge back to reality, and real heinous behavior.

I'm not happy with everything this administration has done, but on balance, it's better than the oposition could have offered.

 

[LakeAriel]

Just a little nudge back to reality, and real heinous behavior.

I'm not happy with everything this administration has done, but on balance, it's better than the oposition could have offered.

Good news! The new tapes don't have to be translated! They show Bush being told BEFORE Katrina that the levies may fail. Gee, he said as recently as yesterday..No one imagined the levies would fail..He's not a liar though.. .

 

[TCPluto]

Good news! The new tapes don't have to be translated! They show Bush being told BEFORE Katrina that the levies may fail. Gee, he said as recently as yesterday..No one imagined the levies would fail..He's not a liar though.. .

You need to go back and listen to the tape. The official talks about the Levies being "topped", and that it couldn't be known with certainty whether they would be "topped". I take "topped" to mean water coming over them, not destroying them.

The levies were not just "topped", they were destroyed. "Topping" would have resulted in far less damage than "failing", a fraction of the damage.

I know the factual information provided doesn't fit with your position, but you have to take it for what it is, you can't revise it to fit your agenda.

I know it's tough, but please try and rely on the facts.
Sorry.

 

[LakeAriel]

You need to go back and listen to the tape. The official talks about the Levies being "topped", and that it couldn't be known with certainty whether they would be "topped". I take "topped" to mean water coming over them, not destroying them.

The levies were not just "topped", they were destroyed. "Topping" would have resulted in far less damage than "failing", a fraction of the damage.

I know the factual information provided doesn't fit with your position, but you have to take it for what it is, you can't revise it to fit your agenda.

I know it's tough, but please try and rely on the facts.
Sorry.

 

[TCPluto]

I know, I know.... the facts don't fit your position so you are left speachless.

 

[LakeAriel]

I know, I know.... the facts don't fit your position so you are left speachless.

sigh~The Bush worship continues

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4765058.stm

 

[Bayshore Bandit]

Did ya miss the part where the National Weather Service expert said
that the situation was of "grave" concern??

"Topped" or not....do people apologizing for Bush actually think that
decades old earthen levies would hold back flood waters from a
category 3-4 hurricane?? Maybe "breached" would have been a better
term, but c'mon, people cannot believe that Bush believed that after
a HURRICANE the waters would just "trickle" over levies

I wonder how they are going to spin the "Your doing a great job Mike",
and the "nobody anticpated the levies would be breached" quotes now?

 

[TCPluto]

sigh~The Bush worship continues

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4765058.stm

Not even close, not by a long shot.

But I prefer to not twist the facts, as you choose to do. The facts , as provided, don't support you revisionist position.

But you're only interested in slamming the president, you're not interested in the truth, you've made that plainly evident.