Moral Equivalency In A Troubled Land

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Surely no one doubts the validity of the claim that our major news sources are propaganda bureaus for the president. Such a suggestion a few decades ago would have been unthinkable, but these days, the only ones who refuse to admit the obvious are the unthinkable.

In our latest terrorist attack Americans are being asked to shoulder blame and guilt for the attack, and accept the premise that if we only listen to our Progressive leaders, such events will stop happening.

These same tenets of guilt are to be applied Obama’s pleas to forego the Second Amendment and the so-called Islamaphobia Americans associate with the Jihadists and their blood thirsty habits. If we accept Obama’s plans for America, these persistent evil doers will have no more reasons to commit work place violence and man-made disasters.

A major portion of the time devoted to the less than honorable trade of propaganda is spent writing moral equivalencies for the president. Thankfully, “The Bush did it” and “It’s Bush’s fault” and the enduring “I inherited a much worse situation than I expected,” excuses that have lost their cachet and even the most deluded Progressives seem to have grown tired of the over used refrains that sound so childlike.

Our Progressive propaganda machine has already begun the moral equivalency to lessen the trauma inflicted upon Obama and his amnesty or immigration policy by the homicidal maniacs, the brothers Tsarnaev. Essentially, the propagandists are trying to convince Americans that we aren’t welcoming foreigners with open arms and comforting them through their time of struggle. Welfare, food stamps, and cheap Obama phones to the tune of over hundred thousand in benefits are not really enough to keep down the rage that boils in the heart of potential terrorists; it is our fault for pushing them beyond a certain point, that makes them feel they need to kill and maim innocents, not to mention indirectly causing immeasurable harm to Obama’s image and legacy.

The New York Times has explained this phenomenon in detail through the efforts of Marcello Suarez-Orozco, dean of UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and Carola Suarez-Orocozco, a professor at the same university. Pointing their collective fingers at Americans, the blame shifts with the lead sentence.

“The alleged involvement of two ethnic Chechen brothers in the deadly attack at the Boston Marathon last week should prompt Americans to reflect on whether we do an adequate job assimilating immigrants who arrive in the United States as children or teenagers.”

Like Boxer the Horse in Orwell’s, “Animal Farm” who accepts guilt for crop failures and famine, but is doing the most to produce the crops, is mindlessly condemning himself to doing more work after being convinced by their leader Napoleon the pig that they must work harder to assure that their will be enough food for all of the animals. Of course Orwell portrayed the Russian people as Boxer and Stalin as Napoleon the pig, who never seems to suffer or miss a meal. Obama is more than happy to assume the role of Napoleon the pig and lecture us on how it is our responsibility to accept all interlopers who enter our country illegally. We must work harder to accept our new illegal immigrants and remember that he is always right. Living life on the high side is a perk of leadership we should ignore. We only need to adopt Boxer’s famous line to his bosses, “I must work harder” and remember “Napoleon is always right.” If he wants us to scrap the Second Amendment and be unarmed, we should be ready to give up our weapons.

If we have people in our country who yell out “Allahu Akbar” while they are killing, we can only conclude that we haven’t worked hard enough to welcome or assimilate these savage beasts into our homes.

Premier educations without the troublesome need to study or work will be helpful, and being hustled into positions of prestige and authority have done wonders for our president. Perhaps Tamerlan and Dzhokbar might have made decent politicians are even presidents now that records of educational achievements can be sealed and asking for verification is considered to be suspicious behavior.

Generals are only too willing to jump aboard the Obama propaganda train, after Major Hassan killed thirteen loyal American service people while screaming “Alahu Akbar”, General Casey, a man who is not distinguished by his intellect and wit, told us it could have been much worse:

“What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.”

I am sure the families of those dead soldiers and those maimed by the bastard Major Hassan would go to pieces if they read of damage to this Progressive idea of diversity, a concept that no soldier has ever sworn to defend.

Moral Equivalency is in a state of suspended animation with the Gosnell murder case; even the rejects from Madison Avenue are having a hard time rationalizing the atrocities of Doctor Gosnell.

Those of us who have delivered or assisted with calves, foals, and human babies can become animated when describing a successful delivery and the sadness of a DOA, but Gosnel is a different type. He derived joy in death and mutilation.

You see, to enable the delivery of a baby during delivery, the “doctor” must crush the head to facilitate the delivery, but sometimes the best laid plans go awry and the baby is born alive. Fortunately, doctors are trained to think quickly and be resourceful. Doctor Gosnel, was no exception, to deal with live babies, he would cut through the spinal cord with scissors and suction out the brain with a vacuum pump, but during busy days at his charnel house of horrors, time was of the essence, and stories of babies swimming in toilets to keep from drowning were mentioned in whispers between employees. Doctor Gosnel in an effort to be creative, cut off hands and feet for a personal collection kept in jars. He also has literary or comic ability, since he joked about certain babies being big enough to hold his hand and walk around the block with him before he killed them.

When even the Obama propaganda machine can’t form a moral equivalency for the doctor, they decide to bury the story to keep the Abortion President from appearing with the blood, gore, and morbid mayhem of the abortion clinics on his white dress shirts and golfing shoes.

In the final analysis, the greatest moral equivalency fraud is being directly perpetrated by Holder and Obama. We are being told, the brothers Tsarnaev planned to bomb Times Square, but for those who look beyond the initial bleatings of our leaders, we must ask, “Why are we being spoon fed this obviously classified information and why hasn’t Dzhokhar been charged with this particular conspiracy?”

We must understand, the initial interrogation of Dzhokhar was to obtain crucial and vital intelligence of an enemy operative who is part of the forces waging Jihad or holy war against the United States a type of moral equivalency where time and the public safety is of the essence. Questions were being asked to obtain information like, who trained your brother, where in Deghastan did your brother get his training, or how did your brother find his trainers, information not needed in a trial, but critical to national defense.

There-in lies the great bugaboo for the Obama Administration and the law as defined by the Leftist Vision of the Law and why the unusual effort by Holder’s Justice Department to rush into federal court on Sunday evening to file charges against Dzhokhar. The great debate on whether Dzhokhar was a wartime enemy combatant or a hooligan was ended with the complaint. Like our Major Hassan, and his infamous “Work Place Violence” we are being shown that the Leftist Vision of the law works and that these instances of violence can be contained and dealt with through the courts. The Jihasist mass murderer of Fort Hood has indicated that he wants to plead guilty, but the Obama Administration refuses to award the victims of Fort Hood Purple Hearts because the move might prejudice the court against him in the extraordinary case of prosecuting a man who is willing to plead guilty.

The ruse is being played and we are being suckered in like fish to chum; Jihad is not an entity to wage war against, it is a criminal matter, national defense is just another example of American aggression.

Americans must accept that the system is working, according to Obama and Holder, and another case of an admitted terrorist will be prosecuted in a court of law presided over by the omnipotent Obama. Forget the vital intelligence that could have been gleaned before Dahokhar was read Miranda like an ordinary street thug and realized his information could be used to plea bargain with a battery of ACLU lawyers acting as intermediaries.

To keep the ruse afloat, the administration promotes the lie that a magistrate judge with serendipitous whimsy barged into a hospital room with arguably the tightest security detail in the world and Mirandized the terrorist, but realists know, no one was getting into that room without intervention from Obama and Holder, and the filing of the complaint is the action that vested the federal court with jurisdiction. Thus the move to get the terrorist into a position where he will no longer expose possible international Jihadist plans by being under the umbrella of the Bill of Rights and the intervention of a defense lawyer. Let there be no doubt, Obama and Holder made this decision of moral equivalency on their own.

While a lucid honest person realizes the advantage of gathering intelligence from a terrorist, who is in a state of bewilderment and without the benefit of a lawyer telling him not to speak, information that can be beneficial if not critical to our national security. The Obama Administration will tell us the interrogation gathered with due process will be just as effective, if not better, but there are few of us who dwell in reality, who believe such claptrap. The gathering of intelligence is over.

We are led to believe the public-safety exception, as in pre-Miranda questioning, will yield the necessary information, questions like: Are there more bombs? Is your vehicle wired with explosives? Did your mommy potty train you correctly? Are supposed to insure the public safety until the threat is neutralized.

Unfortunately, the public-safety exception is a silly concept when dealing with the intensity of enemy combatant interrogation; yet, the moral equivalency continues by both the media and our Celebrity President.

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@George Wells:
What an excellent example of a false dilemma. George!
Either we do this OR we MUST do that.
Nope.
You forgot the infinite spectrum of pressures through diplomacy, through trade, through PR.

But, to be fair, you are a student of Obama.
Obama is king of the false dilemma fallacy disguised as straw man fallacy.
Obama likes to pretend his opponents only want extremist idea, “X.”
Then he laughs at that made-up idea and proposes reasonable idea,”Y.”
Of course, no opponents ever said they wanted X but, hey, his audience is filled with syncohants, so there will be no on-the-spot grousing.

Nan G
on 3
WHAT happen to that FILM MAKER COPTICK CHRISTIAN
depicthing the new EGYPT LEADER, who allow the killing still going on of the CHRISTIANS
to continue, he was sacrifice over the BENGHASI cover up, and put in PRISON,
his film really exposed the truth, and he was vilanize for it,
and he was right all along,
OBAMA prefered to apologize to the MUSLIMS over protecting an AMERICAN
yes BEWAX you are right on, by saying OBAMA declare he would chose the MUSLIMS,
yes he did more than once now,

@Nan G:

Since I am proposing only that unilateral military police action is in BOTH cases unwarranted, there is no false dilemma. I did not speek to the proper use of economic coersion or”diplomacy” etc. I ATTEMPTED to make the point that if the United States was justified, no morally COMPELLED to go into ONE country militarily BECAUSE that country was “misbehaving,” then how in the name of parallel circumstance do we justify NOT going into the others? Surely the proof abounds that Iran and North Korea are further along the road to nuclear mass destruction than was Iraq. Surely if we had a moral imperative urging action against Iraq, the same imperative must guide us against the other two. This is no false dilemma. What was the difference? Oil? Fear that we might not prevale in Iran, we might piss off China in North Korea? So the moral imperative is as shallow as our resolve? The dilemma is that our selective outrage confuses the rest of the world and devalues our moral currency. How ever do we get back what we have given away?

I am not a “student of Obama.” While I think that he has proved to be an effective speaker – when his heart is in it – he is certainly not an effective politician. I would never study (“student”) to emulate his performance. He will be remembered for some few accomplishments, but not for being a great president by any means. He HAS done his race proud, as there were NO footsteps for him to follow in that regard. While he has displayed small bits of courage on a few things, he is often timid and indecisive – reminicient of Jimmy Carter a bit.

I would suggest that it is a part of both our positions that it is required to paint the other side as “extreme.” I have been speaking about gay marriage for some time here, and while I have personally attempted to walk a very moderate and rational path, my course has been repeatedly mischaracterized as demanding and extreme, sinful and depraved. I am reminded of how many times Obama has proposed to congress some option that was just yesterday a Republican goal, only to have it rejected by the House. There is far more mischief afoot than my logic.

SEVEN MILITARY KILLED this week in AFGHANISTAN
WHEN WILL THEY LEVEL THE LAND THERE,
and kill a hundreds for each SOLDIER killed,
that to me would be MORAL EQUIVALENT,

@Wordsmith: My argument isn’t wolves (sunni extremists) vs. wolves (shia extremists), but wolves (Islamic extremists) vs. sheep and sheepdogs(Muslim moderates). Not all of Islam are part of the wolfpack out to kill and convert you.

Not all…..
Bangladesh police break up Islamist protest in Dhaka

Up to half a million supporters of the group Hefazat-e Islam had gathered in the city to call for stronger Islamic policies. Rioters went on to set fire to shops and vehicles.

At least seven people were killed and 60 injured.

Chanting “Allahu Akbar!” (“God is greatest!”) and “One point! One demand! Atheists must be hanged”, the activists marched down at least six main roads as they headed for Motijheel.

Hefazat-e Islam wants greater segregation of men and women, as well as the imposition of stricter Islamic education.

The movement draws its strength from the country’s madrassahs, or religious schools.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22423815

OK, only 1/2 million out of 146 million managed to get into this riot.
So, I guess you’re right….it’s just a small proportion of the 90% Muslims* in Bangladesh.

Now, let’s see.
Usually only a small proportion of any group manages to actually show at a rally.
So, how many do you think Bangladesh really has who want DEATH TO ALL ATHEISTS?

*The rest are Hindu….they worship tons of infidel gods, so I guess they’re safe.

Nan G
I think , of 1/2 million spread all over a country,doesn’t show too much, they are out count,
the wolf mix with the sheeps, as one each, but when they get together they are dangerous ,
as a whole pack of wolfs out to destroy like cowards

@George Wells:

when his heart is in it –

LOL. I think it would be more precise to say: when his teleprompter wasn’t malfunctioning or if it wasn’t for the teleprompter, America would not have had to endure Obama and the Obama Economy.

:

Dude (?) I’m already dissing Obama, how much blood do you want squeezed out of THAT turnip?
LOL indeed!
Really, our economy hasn’t been working very well for much longer than Obama has been catching heat. It got worse in spite of him, and now it’s getting better in spite of him. What good does picking on him do?
Yeah-yeah-yeah, makes you feel better. Have a ball!

@George Wells:

To be fair, many conservatives, even most of them, recognize that the GOP isn’t much better when it comes to the economy or actually being in charge of the federal government. That is in contrast to what the progressive bent who post here would have you believe, which is that conservatives only deride and criticize Obama because he is a Democrat.

Many of the conservatives here made that change in critical thinking about the same time as the Tea Party got it’s start, realizing that the bill of goods that the GOP had been and continues to push on the people is just as, or nearly as, tainted as the bill of goods the Democrats are pushing.

Progressives are progressives, and inhabit both main political parties in this country, and damage the country just the same, whether they have a D or an R by their name. Corporate cronyism is just as rampant amongst the Democratic leadership as it was, and is, amongst the GOP leadership. Welfare is just as damaging to our society whether it is the GOP practicing corporate welfare, or the Democrats practicing welfare given to chosen constituencies who support them.

The only way things will get better is if we get a different type of politician in DC. One that supports states’ rights over Federalism. One that supports equal opportunity over “equal” resultants(in life). One that supports the idea that individual rights are absolute, and that it’s only their job to limit those rights when one person’s rights start affecting his neighbors rights, and not until that point. One that realizes that “there ought to be a law” is the most destructive phrase uttered when something goes wrong. One that respects the property of other men.

The politics of pull are prevalent in today’s political theaters. And that is what needs to end.

@George Wells: So Obama suffers bad press, and American business men and wage owners are going bankrupt by the countless thousands everyday as a result of his counter productive economic policies.

While those who are fairly comfortable in the economy it is easy enough to sit back and cheer the pathetic news of economic recovery and the ever rising stock market prices that indicate a continuous devaluation of our money through quantitative easing more than an economy that is in recovery. For those of in the trenches who are on the verge of losing everything the impotent bleating of our president’s glee club known laughingly as the MSM is a slap in the face.

The question has become, can the country survive another 3.5 years of Obama. Soon even the most deluded among us will face economic disaster. The question of a few more lines of derisive prose directed toward Obama will be the least of their worries.

You will say I am a pessimist, but I will counter that I have been on the leading edge of small business for decades, and I have worked for many of those who are considered to leaders of business and industry for that same time period . Many have gone bankrupt and countless more are on the verge. Those bits of information don’t appear on the propaganda reports, but the final results will be unavoidable in the near future. Only so many small business men can go under before the whole economy slides into the morass of economic chaos.

Only one man has stood in the way of an economic recovery; whatever bitterness is written on these cyber pages will be lost in the outrage that will be directed toward him after the economy reaches the point of no-return.

& Skookum:

I read that you are both not happy, and that you BOTH blame Obama (and Johngalt adds blame to everybody else in Washington as well.) Maybe it would be helpful to ask what you are proposing as a solution?

Anybody lucky enough to be getting more than they deserve and/or more than they had hoped for is in the enviable position of having little to complain about. Most people are not so lucky. But just pointing out everything that you think is wrong doesn’t help. Blaming doesn’t help. Offering a better alternative DOES help.

Pointing out everything that is wrong with “Obamacare” is no help. It was a political hodge-podge cobbled together by disparate factions, how perfect COULD it have been? (Hint: NOT!) OK, we’re all there. But the next step isn’t going back to “zero.” (Maybe you WANT to go back to “zero,” but you need to face the reality that going back to zero isn’t going to happen, at least in the next 3 1/2 years.) The best solution is for you to first identify the WORST part of “Obamacare” and come up with a more attractive alternative. This sort of approach appeals to a wide swath of the American public and has some chance of success. And it can be applied to all sorts of problems. Problem solving produces results, complaining does not.

George Wells
I see you are not familiar with SKOOKUM our beloved and so gifted AUTHOR,
highly smart and full of self restraint and WISDOM.
he is a super moderator, on all of us when we go to angry.
we all appreciate his POSTS and his gifts of writing and we keep pressing him to hurry on delivering his book on the HISTORY
of the OLD WEST habits and lives of those who are the master who shape THIS AMERICA,
which OBAMA IS TRYING TO CHANGE INTO A MOSAIK OF INENTELLIGIBLE {JUST TRYING THIS ONE}
CITIZENRY we would not recognize, if we allow him to continue his destructive agenda of SOCIALIST
AND COMMUNIST AND MARXIST all included and used as needed,
leaving a lot of excrements on this land where they came from yonder to raise the ancestors of this generation with roots on the ground so deep and nourish with the blood of those BRAVES
which you cannot find nowhere in the WORLD and who ever come now would need years to understand
the mind of these so smart AMERICANS, which OBAMA IS PUSHING TO DECIMATE THE FUTURE BY SELLING THE ABORTION , and only the solution to the young AMERICANS,

now , you mentioned our johngalt full of ideas to improve the lives of AMERICANS
which I could see his logic working so well for AMERICA as a future PRESIDENT,
his IQ is above the norm, and when he come here, he speak the truth, and we appreciate his comments,
very well read by all.
WELCOME to FLOPPING ACES, some of the smart group I read and learn to like a lot.
and there are many more.
bye

@George Wells: The Obama Care or Unaffordable Care Act is a minor portion of Obama’s malfunction. We have yet to feel the effects of that particular disaster. Surely you know businessmen who are afraid to make an expansion or hire new people because they don’t know how devastating this monstrosity will be for business people. Making an accurate analysis of the viability of expansion has become the pipe dream of a foolish gambler or a crony feeding at the trough of political corruption.

Obama wields the EPA and its regulatory power like a Chicago gangster uses a ball bat. Destroying competition with cronyism and union favoritism is a real consideration for a man who might not have contributed to the Obama campaign. Forcing the closure of all the GM dealerships owned by Republicans is another example of scaring the crap out of businessmen.

Going back to zeroI would mean restoring faith in the Free Enterprise System and away from crony capitalism and the corruption that has been so openly displayed to America as a pathetic means for Obama to flex his political muscle. He succeeded, he has scared the crap out of the men who control the switches to the engines of the American economy, except for those feeding at Obama’s trough, of course. They will prosper, until they can no longer count on the money from the Obama Stash and the country turns tits up.

A dynamic economy is firing on all cylinders; you cannot have 50% of those who provide the means, funding, and creative ideas afraid to venture forth, the economy slowly suffocates and atrophies. If a business needs the public dole to make a go of it, the business isn’t a viable concern. All of Obama’s businesses have a short lease on life, when his term is up or when he is disgraced because of Benghazi, they will be nothing more than flotsam and jetsam down the sewers of regrettable history.

:

Since you did NOT offer any concrete suggestions for fixing any specific problem (as I requested), but instead blame (again)every problem on Obama, you leave both of us nothing to work with.

In your opinion, is there ONE thing that Obama did that was right, or has he accomplish the statictically impossible and done EVERYTHING wrong. You might demonstrate a bit of balance if for once you don’t trash the President.

Then consider that small business (your priority constituency, evidently) NEVER has a “stable” environment in which to plan for the future. Tax rates and regulatory pressures will ALWAYS fluxuate. NOBODY has a crystal ball, and nobody DESERVES one. That’s why, on the IRS’s Schedule C (Profit or Loss from Business) you’re asked if your investment was “at risk” during the year. If it IS a business, the answer is “YES.” If a small business owner can’t handle the uncertainties of operating in a real-world environment where his profits are NOT guaranteed, he should liquidate and get a job.

@George Wells:

Maybe it would be helpful to ask what you are proposing as a solution?

I did. Perhaps you missed it?

@George Wells: There is precious little to be accomplished squeezing minute amounts of pus and corruption from a boil. To cure the boil or a foreign body infection, you must get rid of the core or the foreign body. People feel better with quantitative easing and its true the pressure is relieved temporarily, but the root cause is still there and it will continue to infect the host until it is removed or the host dies.

Obama is the cause and his departure is the solution. Hopefully, this Benghazi debacle will either depose him or render him politically impotent, with a vote of no confidence from anyone in America with common sense. Obviously it will be the political demise of Hillary as well.

@George Wells: It was a political hodge-podge cobbled together by disparate factions1, how perfect COULD it have been? (Hint: NOT!) OK, we’re all there. But the next step isn’t going back to “zero.” (Maybe you WANT to go back to “zero,” but you need to face the reality that going back to zero isn’t going to happen, at least in the next 3 1/2 years.) The best solution is for you to first identify the WORST part of “Obamacare” and come up with a more attractive alternative2. This sort of approach appeals to a wide swath of the American public and has some chance of success. And it can be applied to all sorts of problems. Problem solving produces results, complaining does not.

1. How could you claim it was ”a political hodge-podge cobbled together” when it was entirely written by Democrats?
No Republican was even allowed to weigh in.
2. Dems themselves have messed with ObamaCare to its detriment.
The ”doctor fix” that was supposed to end has not been ended…..thus ObamaCare is not funded as fully as the CBO was told it would be.
The many exemptions that very big and/or unionized businesses got cut off large amounts of funding ObamaCare had baked in the pie as the CBO was informed.
Obama declared that ”full time work” now means anything more than 30 hours per week. His ”rationale” for this was to force more employers to pay ObamaCare for more of their employees.
But that is backfiring big time. The average worker’s hours worked has been going down steadily since his decision. Just in April alone, the loss of hours of all American workers is the equivalent of the loss of 700,000 full-time jobs!
ObamaCare only funded $5 billion to insure all Americans with pre-existing condtitions. That was not enough for even half of its first year’s worth of applicants.
Democrats who passed ObamaCare expected each state to set up insurance exchanges and – at their expense – oversee them. Half the states refused to do so, throwing it back to the federal gov’t. The federal exchanges are not allowed to pay subsidies to poorer Americans, while state-run exchanges can. So, Democrats simply ignore this part of ObamaCare, at great, great cost.
One part of ObamaCare would help small businesses have a variety of plans to choose from for their workers….Obama delayed implementing that part for his own reasons. Even Democrat Mary Landrieu said his decision cripples 29 million small businesses.
Congress has moved to exempt itself from the ObamaCare exchanges.
The Democrat-controlled Senate symbolically voted to repeal another important funding for ObamaCare. The medical device tax of 2.3% kills jobs, kills innovation and forces device makers overseas. It is still law because the Democrats were only playing at passing a law.

So, there are myriads of things even Democrats see wrong with ObamaCare.
The attempt to co-opt the moral conscience of people opposed to abortion by forcing them to pay for others to get theirs free is probably the very worst part of ObamaCare. But few Democrats care about conscience.

:

OK, I concede that you DID suggest getting “a different type of politician in DC.” And you gave some examples of how they should be “different.” It appeared to me to be such a tall order as to be fanciful as opposed to concrete. Sorry if that was your proposal and I missed it.

In this discussion site, I find a lot of positioning, but very little suggestion for progress through compromise. That seems to be the style adopted by both sides, not just yours. Thankfully, ours is not a “one-party” system of government, but that fact does require some give and take from both sides in order to make anything happen. Not much is happening. I get the impression that the “Tea-Party” folks would be even less inclined to compromise than the Republican “establishment,” and if the Tea Party were to more-or-less REPLACE the Republican Congress, what at all would get done?

I think that if both sides would focus on finding small details to work on, one-by-one, we might find some incremental progress is possible. That is the kind of suggestions I have been looking for here. “Kick the bums out!” isn’t really much of a plan.

@George Wells:

Well, are we the world’s policeman or not? If not, then either we should NOT have gone into Iraq OR we SHOULD go into Iran AND North Korea AND Syria AND Somolia etc., etc. We cannot and we should not have.

President Bush’s 2003 SotU:

Different threats require different strategies. In Iran we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror.

We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny, and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom.

(APPLAUSE)

On the Korean Peninsula, an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation. Throughout the 1990s, the United States relied on a negotiated framework to keep North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons. We now know that that regime was deceiving the world and developing those weapons all along.

And today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions.

America and the world will not be blackmailed.

(APPLAUSE)

America is working with the countries of the region–South Korea, Japan, China and Russia–to find a peaceful solution and to show the North Korean government that nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation and continued hardship.

(APPLAUSE)

The North Korean regime will find respect in the world and revival for its people only when it turns away from its nuclear ambitions.

(APPLAUSE)

Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean Peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction.

For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological and nuclear weapons even while inspectors were in his country.

Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons: not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities.

Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead utter contempt for the United Nations and for the opinion of the world.

The 108 U.N. inspectors were sent to conduct–were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq’s regime is disarming.

It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.

@George Wells:

I ATTEMPTED to make the point that if the United States was justified, no morally COMPELLED to go into ONE country militarily BECAUSE that country was “misbehaving,” then how in the name of parallel circumstance do we justify NOT going into the others? Surely the proof abounds that Iran and North Korea are further along the road to nuclear mass destruction than was Iraq. Surely if we had a moral imperative urging action against Iraq, the same imperative must guide us against the other two. This is no false dilemma. What was the difference? Oil? Fear that we might not prevale in Iran, we might piss off China in North Korea? So the moral imperative is as shallow as our resolve? The dilemma is that our selective outrage confuses the rest of the world and devalues our moral currency.

As my translated copy of Jean-Francois Revel‘s book, Anti-Americanism, puts it on the back flap,

As far as America’s [seeming] “unilateralism” is concerned, Revel asserts that the United States is forced to act alone because Europe has repeatedly failed to act in the cause of collective security.

Just how many more “redlines” in the sand UNSCRs did the UN hope to wrist-slap Saddam with to show the Butcher of Baghdad that the world meant serious business and “grave consequences” for his decade of deceit and defiance?

If Saddam’s Iraq had not been dealt with on Bush’s watch, President Obama would be contending with the trifecta Axis of Evil of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, instead of just two regimes.

@ Wordsmith:

You make the excellent case that the United States DID act prematurely in Iraq.

Had we delayed, what harm would we or our European allies have suffered? Would Saddam have stockpiled more old and empty mustard shell casings? More aluminum pipes?

When he ventured into Kuwait, we gained quick and substantial international support for a military response. The subsequent burden was shared. No such widespread support was afforded our WMD-seaking adventure, and the cost of shouldering that load alone has been staggering. Ten years later, what has our investment gained? Iraq is minus one despot, but less stable than before. We’re out a trillion dollars, several thousand courageous lives, and a load of international good will. It wasn’t worth it.

Saddam DIDN’T have WMD’s, so had nothing to reveal or destroy. No wonder he had nothing but contempt for the UN mandates – they placed him is a “catch-22.” He was all bluster, because he had nothing else.

Yes, England and the United States waited a bit too long to respond to Hitler, but we jumped the gun on Iraq.

By the way, isn’t your use of Bush’s own statements as a defense of his actions begging the question? His statements are exactly as suspect as the actions they sought to justify. You can do better.

George Wells
THE PRESIDENT BUSH DID WHAT WAS THE RIGHT THING,
he was open and did not sell himself,
and he got there just in time to prevent an holocaust of the KURDS up NORTH, who where our ally
didn’t you see his goons throwing the young people prisoners down the high stage and choking with laughter, this guy was a tyrant on his own people,
and GEORGE BUSH FATHER saw it first hand, when SADDAM invade KUWAIT
you gage yourself by going back in history
but at the least get the real facts of what happened.
NOW the after BUSH era is stained with lies and secret cover up, you cannot believe anything coming from the leadership,
the only thing is FOX reliable talk because they back it up with guess who know the real story, they where there,
and the man jailed for the anti muslim video movie was right
he exposed the new EGYPT torturing CHRISTIAN exactly,
and as an AMERICAN was let down by OBAMA and HILARY CLINTON publicly denied their connection with an AMERICAN they are there to protect, they even spend thousands to support their separate views on the COPTIC CHRISTIAN
exposing the torture from the MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
THEY BOTH embrace as brothers

:

Bees, Bees, Bees! Every country has factions we like and ones we don’t. And everybody loves a good fight. Every country will happily fight THEMSELVES if we agree to fund them or give them weapons or fight by their sides.

We have no business getting into other countries internal afairs, and we have no money to pay for the adventure.
Killing Kurds, REALLY? Like genocide isn’t the world’s favorite pass-time? Do you really think that we can stop it by ourselves??? Torture? Like WE don’t torture? Everybody tortures. Kurds and Coptic Christians are not national security concerns. If YOU want to help them, go. But there aren’t enough tax dollars in this country to pay your way, and every other good intention that we can think of. WE ARE NOT THE POLICE!!!

George Wells
yes I do agree now for this war, but not the last which is history now, and I was reminicist on SADDAM profile, THE PRESIDENT BUSH was in a position to a must retaliate action presented to him by the multiple attacks from the MUSLIM WORLD who hit home on SEPTEMBER 11 in a killing of a mass many thousands AMERICAN PEOPLE SEEKING ONLY A PEACEFULL LIFE FOR THEIR OWN LOVED ONE, and advancing the wealth of AMERICA,
and he choose the worse of them
SADDAM who was getting arrogant and sure of his POWER to attack other neighboring COUNTRIES,
THE PRESIDENT BUSH did the best thing by choosing IRAK, and it worked, he gave them the FREEDOM to seek peace or kill their own, they choose both, it doesn’t work but this is their own decisions,
while now, SYRIA stayed to itself,never seek to invade another COUNTRY, and fought it’s rebels coming from the BROTHERHOOD aiming at get him down, which OBAMA APPROVED THEM since
their beginning, he had them at the WHITE HOUSE and help them win over GADAFI which he bluntly told to resign, as if it was his business to decide it just like EGYPT MUBARACK who was also cooperating with AMERICA, ,
OBAMA cut those ties to help the MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD WIN THE ARAB SPRING,
HE TOOK THE WORD OF THE LIBYA LEADER who did not want AMERICAN presence for security,
which result in the MASSACER of high profile DIPLOMATE AND SOME OF THE BEST WARRIORS OF AMERICA, he is the maker of what happened from before it happened,
he fired some sub workers and took them back on their job thinking the PEOPLE WOULD NOT KNOW,
HE IS PLAYING THE PEOPLE FOR STUPID,
now the people are talking to him,
so he want the brotherhood to have the SYRIA and advance their power of citizenry and countries, to gain stength
and not so far in the future take on AMERICA with the help of THE MAJORITY UN MUSLIMS, and facilitated by the DEMOCRATS of his party of robots
do you dig it?

:

No. The Middle-East was insane 2000 years ago. It was insane 100 years ago, and 25 years ago, and it is insane today. Blaming it on Obama is insane. The Middle-East problem is in the Middle-East, not in the Whitehouse.

Every president since I was born has tried to “fix” the Middle-East, and none have succeeded. Nobody will ever make any difference as long as everybody blames each other for the mess the Middle-East is in. Bees…Stop Blaming!…Give it a rest!

@George Wells:

@ Wordsmith:

You make the excellent case that the United States DID act prematurely in Iraq.

Had we delayed, what harm would we or our European allies have suffered? Would Saddam have stockpiled more old and empty mustard shell casings? More aluminum pipes?

Ah, but you’re looking through the 20/20 lens of hindsight. Imo, he should have been dealt with early on. Because he was able to defy and deceive for a decade, he expected George Bush to be no different than Bill Clinton– just more UNSCR redlines issued and more meaningless bombings of little consequence to him:

he told me he initially miscalculated President Bush. And President Bush’s intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998 under Operation Desert Fox. Which was a four-day aerial attack. So you expected that initially,” Piro says.

Piro says Saddam expected some kind of an air campaign and that he could he survive that. “He survived that once. And then he was willing to accept that type of attack. That type of damage,” he says.

“Saddam didn’t believe that the United States would invade,” Pelley remarks.

“Not initially, no,” Piro says.

No such widespread support was afforded our WMD-seaking adventure,

How do you define “widespread support”? France? Russia? China? Germany? Countries who had a financial investment in Saddam not being overthrown?

and the cost of shouldering that load alone has been staggering. Ten years later, what has our investment gained? Iraq is minus one despot, but less stable than before. We’re out a trillion dollars, several thousand courageous lives, and a load of international good will. It wasn’t worth it.

Who really knows in the long-term whether or not it ultimately was worthless? Who knows what the price today and tomorrow would be if Saddam and his murderous sons were still in power?

Based upon history, intent, what we knew and thought we knew at the time, the decision to remove Saddam’s regime was made. The U.S. policy of regime change began under Clinton; seeing as how President Obama has perpetuated a number of Bush-era policies, do you think it might be possible that even an Al Gore presidency might have led us down a similar path? After all, there is a certain continuity of government and decision-making that seems to go beyond political party in power. Look back upon Al Gore statements made regarding wmd, along with a host of Democrats.

Saddam DIDN’T have WMD’s, so had nothing to reveal or destroy. No wonder he had nothing but contempt for the UN mandates – they placed him is a “catch-22.” He was all bluster, because he had nothing else.

And he led much of the world into the belief that he was a wmd danger (and as was pointed out by Mata, wmd stockpile possession was not the only reason stated as justification; and postwar findings still confirm that he retained capability and intention to reacquire his wmd status). It wasn’t just the Bush team.

So based upon what you just said, Saddam himself is responsible for what happened to him and his regime, right?

“And what did he tell you about how his weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed?” Pelley asks.

“He told me that most of the WMD had been destroyed by the U.N. inspectors in the ’90s. And those that hadn’t been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq,” Piro says.

“So why keep the secret? Why put your nation at risk, why put your own life at risk to maintain this charade?” Pelley asks.

“It was very important for him to project that because that was what kept him, in his mind, in power. That capability kept the Iranians away. It kept them from reinvading Iraq,” Piro says.

Before his wars with America, Saddam had fought a ruinous eight year war with Iran and it was Iran he still feared the most.

“He believed that he couldn’t survive without the perception that he had weapons of mass destruction?” Pelley asks.

“Absolutely,” Piro says.

You wrote:

By the way, isn’t your use of Bush’s own statements as a defense of his actions begging the question? His statements are exactly as suspect as the actions they sought to justify. You can do better.

No I can’t. 😉

His speech isn’t based upon spin and fabrication. [can of worms] Even the 16 words. [/can of worms]. Aside from that, his speech was well vetted.

Was CIA information flawed? You betcha! But that’s the history and nature of intell.

Did the Bush guys simply make things up to fight daddy’s war for oil? Nope.

:

Yes, I agree exactly that “Saddam himself is responsible for what happened to him.” In a silly, adults-can’t-avoid-taking-responsibility-for-what-they-do sort of way. He also shares responsibility for what happened to Iraq. He shares that with his sons, his generals and his people. We also share a similar responsibility, not just to Iraq, but to our taxpayers, our military forces, and to the world community that depends on us for too very much.

So true that the alternative is no longer in sight. We WILL never know what Saddam and his sons MIGHT have done. That is our curse. Because hind-sight or not, we failed to find what we were looking for – we were wrong – and that is the result by which we will be judged, not what might have been. The money is spent, the people are dead.

We should have finished Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait. The world had our backs, we were already there, we had a justification (all-be-it harsh) and a clean kill could have been gained before any real opposition materialized. We would have saved the to-and-fro costs and also the world’s good will. Instead, ten intervening years of feckless UN weapons inspections and wrist-slapping sanctions emboldened him to make the fatal miscalculation you reference – thanks for the reminder. Bluster is only a crime in the context of the doctrine of preventative war. What hath Bush wrought?

@George Wells:

We WILL never know what Saddam and his sons MIGHT have done.

But we know what they will no longer do.

Because hind-sight or not, we failed to find what we were looking for – we were wrong – and that is the result by which we will be judged, not what might have been.

That dreadful neocon Douglas Feith:

Misconception 9

WAS the war in Iraq fought only to remove WMD stockpiles?
IN FACT:
Saddam’s pattern of aggression, defiance, and ties to terrorists were a major concern, made all the more serious by his programs of WMD development.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 distorted public discourse on the Iraq issue, focusing the debate narrowly on WMD disclosures and inspections-and therefore on whether the inspectors would find contraband stockpiles. And it ignored the logic of the rationale for regime change-that Saddam’s record of aggression was so long and so bloody as to be irredeemable. (p. 336)

Contrary to later claims by many commentators, President Bush did not build his case against Saddam exclusively on assertions that Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Not even the portion of his case that dealt with weapons of mass destruction focused only on stockpiles. (p. 311)

Saddam maintained connections to foreign terrorists. To some he gave refuge. Others he allowed to operate from Iraqi territory. He trained thousands of foreign terrorists in Iraqi facilities and provided them political support and funds. The CIA reported in September 2002 that “Iraq continues to be a safehaven, transit point, or operational node for groups and individuals who direct violence against the United States, Israel, and other allies. Iraq has a long history of supporting terrorism.” (p. 187)

With economic sanctions eroding, we anticipated that they would soon collapse and Saddam would emerge emboldened by his victory over the United States and the United Nations. Our main concern was not that Saddam would then attack the United States out of the blue. We worried rather that, in his effort to dominate the Persian Gulf and the broader Middle East, Saddam would aim to deter outside intervention by developing his conventional and WMD capabilities, along with the prohibited long-range missiles (or, possibly, terrorist alliances) to deliver them. (p. 514)

After weighing the risks of war against the risks of leaving Saddam in power, President Bush decided it was unreasonably risky to allow Saddam to choose the time and place for turning Iraq’s ongoing, low-level confrontation with the United States into a high-level conflict. (p. 515)

In dealing with the threat from Saddam Hussein, President Bush understood that he was responsible for calculating the risks of inaction as well as the risks of action. In the prewar deliberations on Iraq, he discussed both types of risk. The decision to go to war was controversial, and he knew he would be damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. He had to choose the course of action for which he would rather be damned by his contemporaries and by history. (p. 525-6)

You wrote:

The money is spent, the people are dead.

Or money invested and lives saved. Who knows? 😉

We should have finished Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait. The world had our backs, we were already there, we had a justification (all-be-it harsh) and a clean kill could have been gained before any real opposition materialized.

Yes, it was unfortunate not to finish the job; but that wasn’t the mission authorized under the UN mandate. (Re: UNSCR 678)

We were authorized to free Kuwait by driving the Iraqi forces out and restore the Kuwait royal family back to power. Anything further action would have been condemned by other Gulf countries (it sounds like you’re not all for behaving unilaterally, correct?).

So rather than achieving a surrender and a signed peace treaty, we obtained a “cease-fire” agreement. Saddam never stopped believing he was not at war with the U.S.

What hath Bush wrought?

Why not ask what the world had wrought by allowing Saddam to continue to be a constant menacing and metastasizing threat? It was not only a bipartisan belief, but an opinion held by others in the world. Saddam was a destabilizing player to the region and to the world.

After 9/11, Bush made the decision that a known wmd-lover (he made no secrets about his desire to possess; but he did obfuscate and hide what he had agreed to disclose, as per the Cease-Fire Agreement) and open-state sponsor of domestic and international terrorism could no longer be allowed to reign on; that Saddam had 12 years to come clean and abide by 16 + 1 UNSCRs. That the regime was irredeemable and we had to act not because the threat was imminent, but before it ever became imminent. To paraphrase from the 2003 SotU or one of Bush’s other speeches, if we wait until the threat is imminent, then we would have waited too late.

Wordsmith
YES you got the right ANSWER, for HISTORY to be written on IRAK,
Ii’s high time to DEBUNK the LIBERALS talking HEADS,
and correct the facts they always try to mix up facts,
we have a blatant proof now with the BENGHASI FACTS
jumping like a sore IN THEIR EYES
SSE THEM TRYING TO PROTECT THE MAKER OF HISTORY
BY TWISTING THAT ONE

:

“That the regime was irredeemable and we had to act not because the threat was imminent, but before it ever became imminent. To paraphrase from the 2003 SotU or one of Bush’s other speeches, if we wait until the threat is imminent, then we would have waited too late.”

The so-called “doctrine of preemptive war.” Of all the mistakes Bush made (EVERY president makes them) this one was the worst. This… INVITATION to Armageddon. Why would anyone want to imply that there MIGHT somewhere be found a justification for going at your enemies simply because they might some day have a go at you, and you want to beat them to it.

Can you imagine the consequences had either the United States or the Soviet Union seriously contemplated preemptive war as an acceptable alternative to either the status quo or to the deterrent effect of mutually assured destruction? Can you imagine the consequences that would obtain should every country with a border dispute and a cache of weapons decide that preemptive war is justified? After all, the USA, the conscience and the muscle of the ‘free world” now justifies it.

There is absolutely no honor, no civility, no limit expressed or implied in the doctrine of preemptive war. Its rational justifies any and all measures used to prevail. Why NOT use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons on your enemy? After all, he MIGHT use the same on you some day.

We are already enough of a bully on the block that we can get away with more than a trivial amount of mischief. We had intel (good or bad) that backed up our Iraq plans, and we didn’t have to invent a doctrinal justification for war that could be used by the rest of the world as a perfectly justifiable excuse to start killing each other on a hunch.

We can’t get back the trillions of dollars or the lives lost – right or wrong – but we can and should take back that doctrine. The world needs no more reasons to fight than it already has.

George Wells
oh yes AFTER 6000 deaths, you are program by the OBAMA mindset,
truly deep hey?
don’t do nothing and it will disappear , nevermind the death of AMERICANS,
you are all self centered, selfish turned onto yourself,
do not disturb me,
if it was not for the UN which is not good for AMERICA,
THE PRESIDENT BUSH WOULD HAVE maybe go NUKE, IT would have fix not the part of the BOIL like SKOOK mentioned not to do, but heal it to the core,
how come you read in the history of the world, some corrupt COUNTRIES ending all of a sudden with a GOD MADE CATACLYSM, not human made, it showed the truth of HEALING and eradicate a tormentor civilization who keep seeking war, they bring it to your door on your land they where allowed to buy
from corrupt greeddy people in power,
spreading the infection from the small boil to a whole COUNTRY,

@George Wells: It’s not as if other countries have not exercised the doctrine themselves.

How would you describe Israel’s actions in Syria right now?

How that doctrine was applied in the case of Iraq is definitely questionable- but was also narrowly focused upon Iraq and not other nations. This wasn’t a reckless “cowboy” administration with a yee-haw attitude of “let’s have more war”. There was indeed serious deliberation taking place.

It could be argued that what the Bush administration carried out was a doctrine of “preventive” war (acting against potential threat), not “preemptive” war (striking the first blow in anticipation of inevitable aggression on the part of the enemy).

The case of Iraq is unique, as pointed out in Bush’s 2003 SotU, and how it distinguished itself from the other countries that comprised the Axis of Evil triumvirate.

I am more inclined to justify the Iraq invasion as a continuation of the first Gulf War, and enforcement of broken UNSCRs, including the original agreement (which is why 678 was cited and not 1441 as justification for physical force).

The Bush administration made the decision that a rogue regime who has been a constant menace throughout the region for the last decade in a post-9/11 world was too dangerous to be allowed to hover over our heads as a future threat. Again, the marriage between Saddam’s love for wmd and the fear that he, as an open state-sponsor of terrorism, would ally with terrorists to use as proxy and deliver a wmd attack. And yes, he would indeed (and did) cooperate with religious as well as secular terrorists. This is confirmed by the Iraqi Perspectives Project, translating just some of the captured documents in the Harmony Database. Right or wrong, in the administration’s view, Saddam’s regime posed “the threat of wmd terrorism” and that (finally) taking care of Saddam would send a message to other state sponsors of terror, post 9/11. Saddam had systematically undermined a 10 yr effort on the part of the UN and U.S. to disarm him of further aggression (as per Agreement). Among all the state actors who support terrorism and known to pursue chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons ambitions, only Iraq had been made subject to a 10 yr long, multi-national diplomatic pressure of disarmament. And he remained in defiance to the end. The UN projected weakness, along with the U.S….until Bush jr. came along. He meant what he said.
Saddam misread Bush. So he displayed the same defiant and deceitful behavior that allowed him to prevail for a decade of snubbing his nose at the UN and the U.S.

I don’t have much of a problem with people who disagree with the Bush decision. But I have a problem with so many of the Bush-deranged reasoning behind why they thought it was a bad idea, along with conspiracy theories on motive, and 20/20 hindsight armchair criticism. (Like people who cite “no wmd”, when that was never part of their reasoning beforehand- not all post-war critics were pre-war critics based upon a belief that Saddam didn’t have wmd; but now conveniently use that argument).

:

Since you asked, Israel’s actions in Syria right now are an example of two contiguous countries who have been bristling for a fight forever. As with Lebanon, rockets fly back and forth predictably. There are factions in Israel that want war, and factions in Palestine that want war with Israel. Both consider the other at war every time something explodes. They excuse their mutual aggression as the sovereign right of each, to protect their own national security.

While Syria and Israel may or may not be justified in claiming this sovereign right, the United States certainly has no equivalent right in the cases of either Syria OR Iraq. Iraq did not pose a sufficient threat to our national security to evoke a right to self-defense.

“Like people who cite “no wmd”, when that was never part of their reasoning beforehand”

I watched and listened when Colin Powell made his presentation to the UN. WMDs WERE part of the reasoning. They were the principle reason given. The reason only morphed into what a bad actor Saddam was after it became apparent that WMDs were nowhere to be found.

Whether you call it Preemptive War or Preventative War, the meaning and effect are essentially the same. Mincing the words doesn’t distract from the danger such a doctrine poses. The First Gulf War was widely supported BECAUSE Iraq HAD invaded Kuwait, while the Second one was not, BECAUSE Iraq had NOT done anything more that talk trash and back it up by giving the UN a hard time. Not only was our intel wrong about the WMDs, it was also totally blind to Saddam’s game. Which was the more fatal mistake?

George Wells
ONE OF THE MUSLIM COUNTRIES< HAD TO BE IN THE CONTRACT of punishment
because they as carrying the flag of ISLAM came and destroyed the hightest TOWER full of 6ooo AMERICANS, other crash elsewhere killing a plane full of AMERICANS, another crash close to THE PENTAGONE,
what contract did they gave us?
do nothing?
hell no THE PRESIDENT BUSH is not one of those we are now hearing ,
he went for the punishment and choose the one most corrupt and most dangerous,
too bad he did not have more times , he would have fix AFGHANISTAN to give them the message they would have heard unequivalent as oppose to what this one does in the back of the MILITARY
getting shot by those they teach,as order from OBAMA COMMAND

:

Osama and friends attacked us first. We went looking for him, and found him hiding protected by the Taliban in Afganistan. We slammed the Taliban hard, and then continued to hunt Osama. He did not go to Iraq, and Saddam wasn’t being supported by the Taliban. We went after Saddam (in Iraq) before Al Qaeda was a player in that country. (Al Qaeda stayed in Afganistan and Pakistan until Iraq was so weakened by Saddam’s fall that they could essentially sneak in.) Saddam had nothing to do with the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Blame 9-11 on Bin Laden, not Saddam. Bin Laden was extreme Islam, Saddam was secular. Don’t confuse the two.

George Wells said: We slammed the Taliban hard, and then continued to hunt Osama. He did not go to Iraq, and Saddam wasn’t being supported by the Taliban. We went after Saddam (in Iraq) before Al Qaeda was a player in that country. (Al Qaeda stayed in Afganistan and Pakistan until Iraq was so weakened by Saddam’s fall that they could essentially sneak in.) Saddam had nothing to do with the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon

George, again you are narrowing your focus to cherry pick, just as you did when you suggest WMD was the only reason we went into Iraq.

To your first observation: “Saddam wasn’t being supported by the Taliban”. This suggests the erroneous assumption *only* AQ was the non-State enemy, and not their loosely affiliated subchapters. The GWOT (global war on terror, now defunct for PC reasons), was never only about AQ, but about all terrorist groups who would align themselves with similar methods in waging cowardly war, for the same ideological quest of an Islamic Caliphate. However for years after Sept 11th, people couldn’t get beyond any group that didn’t hold an “al Qaeda” membership card… if there was such a thing.

Fact is you are incorrect, because Saddam *was* being supported and aided by terrorist groups, running training camps and doing his border smuggling to bypass the OFF program, and getting the proscribed missiles *after 1998* that were found in the Netherlands junkyard by the UNMOVIC. That has been documented by that int’l group in reports that I have linked here in the past far more than once.

So the question needs to be asked? If a group doesn’t call themselves “xxxx al Qaeda”, are they no longer considered the enemy? Only to those with microscopic focus/tunnel vision, and who enjoy parsing names that change when the wind blows.

Nor did AQ fighters stay only in Iraq and Pakistan. Some Taliban associates did, but others did indeed align themselves with Iraq fighting forces. I don’t suppose the handle, “al-Qaeda in Irag” rings a bell? They were considered an official merging of two already existing groups… one with allegiance to Zarwahiri (AQ’s #2) and UBL (AQ’s #1 at that time)…in Nov 2004 when Zarqawi proclaimed official support. Doesn’t mean they weren’t operating under the same ideology prior to the official announcement, does it?

Nov 2004 was hardly a time when the Iraqi and US forces were weakened or losing, as you insinuate. A battle for the future of Iraq was being waged, but the Islamists did not have an advantage.

Speaking of Zawahiri, he and Saddam go way back. And that includes to Somalia 1993 under POTUS Clinton. Does any of that also ring bells? You would find the Harmony and ISG memos, seized after we deposed Saddam in 2003, very interesting reading. Ray Robison’s book, Both in One Trench, is enlightening reading. He put that out long before the official Iraq Report was released. But then Robison had inside knowledge because he was part of the Iraqi Survey Group who gathered, and began translating, Saddam’s correspondence. He and his Iraq translator, going by the name of “Sammi” were ahead of the game.

Our enemy is not only the one who bombed the WTC in Sept 2011. If you’ll remember, that wasn’t the first bombing of that building. Nor was it the first attack on US interests. In fact, the first “official” (after already documented attacks) declaration of war was in 1998, with the World Islamic Statement, signed by AQ kingpin, UBL, and Zawahiri who (at that time) was still the head honcho of EIJ.

So I find your warning about “confusing the two” somewhat ironic. It seems you want to pin all your opinions of facts on the name of the terrorist group of the day, and not the history of the players involved. It is far more complex than you seem to recognize.

What is common is… who are the players that were behind those attacks, and how they were cooperating behind the scenes for years. And Saddam’s hands were far from clean.

George Wells
thank’s for the info, I knew that also, I’m not mixing HIM with BIN,
but HE had invaded KUWEIT, and GEORGE W went to get him out,
and he learned a lot of bad thing about him,
so he stood out as the first culprit to be taken out
as a retaliation for the WORLD TRADE CENTER 6ooo and the other plane full of people who died defending themselves, and a third plane drop in around the I think it’s the PENTAGONE,
or around there, SADDAM
was a very bad man for his people who where scared of dying all the time,
or being torture,
I happen to see one of his torture, throwing down a high elevation some he had chosen to torture
for his machiavelic mindset, he had it done by his goons doing everything he wanted or be kill.

SKOOKUM
I think you will understand what I am going to explain,

ABOUT the girls who had a terrible 10 years now free, with a long repair to face with those memory,
one woman from the family of one girl said please don’t crowd them, they need space,
she add up there was a miracle, she was sure of it,
I do also believe in MIRACLE, and with that in mind I keep thinking that the one calling the 911,
she had escaped out of a narrow lower space on a door, help by a man which in other circonstances would have been scare to be close to, he became the angel , he saved her by breaking some wood nailed to the door,
and with all that together, it made me think that the guy was ready to kill them soon,
and there the miracle happened, she was the tool to save all the other chosen by GOD,
OKAY now I’m in tears, and I had to tell what I felt so strongly,
this evil man was ready to kill, and the POWER of GOD liberate them, before,
A miracle and I believe it really was like that woman said,
who know when but it was close to this end, I FELT IT.
AND THAT GIRL FELT IT TOO. she was push to the extreme
last action to get out and save the other, it done in extrimist.
the voice she had on 911, was someting I’will never forget.

@MataHarley:

When you’re good, you’re good.

But you forgot one small detail: both ObL and Al Zawahiri got their start with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Looming Tower is a great book to see how the players evolved.

Yes, retire05… true, but also somewhat outdated in today’s context.

Zawahiri has long distanced himself from the MB for their foray into the unIslamic tent of “political Islam”. Islamists consider elections incompatible with their beliefs (not my opinion, their stated words), and MB has decided to take their own route into recruitment and power/control via that very system. The Muslim Brotherhood, mostly grassroots, has been around since the 1920s. However, even tho they all cooperated in the attempted assassinations of Mubarak – Zawahiri’s sworn enemy – in earlier times (as Sunnis and Shia will also cooperate against a common enemy), they took a divergent route circa 1997. So what was yesterday’s MB isn’t today’s MB. They prefer to work to achieve the same goals, but within the confines of the legal and electoral system. Hence those in the US prison system, and our college campuses, are especially vulnerable to their propaganda and messages.

However the US has always had fringe voices in our midst… from Communist/Socialist to the KKK… their voices still enjoy 1st Amendment rights. What we all hope is that the majority of citizens will count them as the loons they are.

ADDED: Forgot to mention, I own “The Looming Tower”… also a good book. Never hurts to add as much perspective as possible.

@ MataHarley:

“Waging cowardly war?” Really? Do you expect them to line up in formation, load muskets in unison and fire on command like an 18th century battalion? Strapping explosives around their waists DOESN’T take courage? From their perspective, they are being invaded by our culture, threatened by our money’s power, and they are powerless to engage us as equals. They resist how they can, and in a similar situation we would do the same.

I do paint with broad brushstrokes, as I seek the big picture. Your greater detail confirms the wisdom of my reluctance to invest our military attention on the Middle-East:

“It is far more complex than you seem to recognize.” Oh, it is complex indeed. In fact, it is WAY too complex for our brilliant intelligence operatives to get it right in the first place (they didn’t), and way too complex for our military to correct (it hasn’t). Yet our military adventure in Iraq was justified by the simplest of excuses – that Saddam had WMDs. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?

If our ten years/trillion dollars/thousands of American lives had bought us something we really wanted, we’d keep up the effort. But that complexity you talked about makes it impossible for us to do that. Our miscalculations have been sobering. Shall we stay there in perpetuity? How much shall we invest going forward? Global terrorism was not and is not confined within any borders, and for us to stay in any one place is to simply present ourselves as a convenient target.

We do have a sovereign right to self-defense. But we need to keep it as simple and direct as possible. We’re not good at fancy. When we try, we just end up screwing ourselves.

Speaking of cowardly, George Wells… amidst all that data and links, you choose to focus on the phrase, “waging cowardly war”?

Newsflash – I call it that because they attack innocents… mostly their own Muslim peers…as part of their mainstay warfare. No. That is not bravery. They are no better than loons or defective cockroach humans, praying on unsuspecting children. Worse since they do it in the name of their version of “Islam”, which the majority of their peers so do not share. So they are equally mentally and morally challenged.

So no… strapping explosives around their waist doesn’t require “courage”. What it requires is disconnected, demented and ill-placed devoted beliefs and intelligent analysis. Unless, of course, you want to call all the Jamestown suicide types “brave”. Or maybe those who worship ETs. Or some human, hurling themselves off a bridge in a suicide, as “brave” as opposed to too weak to face life and all it entails.

As for the rest of your comments? Well, I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt for astute and educated analysis. It’s not like I didn’t provide you stellar reading material via links, fer heavens sake. Many subsequent comments have revealed there isn’t a fiscal conservative bone in your cyber body. So apparently that’s not the case either.

Instead, what it seems is that retire05 had you pegged from the start. You’re not really a “conservative” who votes for Dems all because of the LGBT movement. You’re simply a another lib/prog voice, hoping to fool a few people. Shame on you for misrepresentation. Hence all her extraneous verbal abuse is warranted.

Happy trails!

@MataHarley:

So what was yesterday’s MB isn’t today’s MB.

That is true, but they haven’t changed, only evolved. Same book, different chapter.

Hence those in the US prison system

,

Which will come back to bite us.

When I was in Mississippi, there was an Islamic compound just a few miles out of the town I was staying in. It was fairly large, surrounded by concertina wire, with guard patrols who carried AK-47s. Most of the residents were black, and most of them were former jail birds. On high poles, at the gate, were cameras that provided them with a video of every car that traveled down the road. The police were not allowed on the compound, and when one of them died, the ambulance was not allowed inside, rather, the body was brought to the gate by the armed guards.

The PD Chief told me that he knew there were children inside the compound, that did not attend school, but since they were not allowed entry, for any reason, they didn’t know how the kids were being treated. He had been working with the FBI to try to figure out a way to check on the children, and the women, who were all covered in their standard bee keeper’s outfits.

@MataHarley:

Maybe George should do a little research into the benevolence of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood toward the Copts since the “Arab spring” and Morsi’s rise to power.

BTW, the Fort Hood jihadist murder is asking that his trial be posponed until September, for some reason. Why is that bastard not hanging from a live oak tree, beard and all?

you won’t believe what I just heard : the chopper which fell and killed the PEOPLE
they invited an IMAN, and no CHRISTIAN PRIEST,
to make the ULOGY
the IMAN pronounce words and some said he was sending them to hell,
I”M not sure it was done in AFGHANISTAN where the CHOPPER CRASH
BUT I’m guessing it was there,it seem that the IMAN was invited to speak by this GOVERNMENT,
this is outrageous

the chopper which crash in AFGHANISTAN and killed all the people,
someone from the GOVERNMENT invite A iman to do the ULOGY,
and the IMAN said some word of the KORAN and send them to hell,
this is my second time I type it,
I lost the first one somehow,
I just heard it at FOX and IT’s outrageous to hear, and unbelievable to think
it happened and no CHRISTIAN MINISTER was there,
that should be follow to find who invited the IMAN

yes it’s the WHITE HOUSE who send the IMAN
he sent them to hell.

re: #92:

“ Many subsequent comments have revealed there isn’t a fiscal conservative bone in your cyber body.”

Let’s start with “I don’t want to go broke being the World’s police.” “Small Government” includes the military, and we cannot restrain military spending if we want to go to war every time somebody else gets a rat up their butt. You may think that “fiscal conservatism” means only squeezing the “safety net,” but if you’re burning bucks, it doesn’t matter which ones go up in flames.

“they attack innocents… mostly their own Muslim peers.”

Fine. Let them.

“Hence all her(retire05’s) extraneous verbal abuse is warranted”

Since when is verbal abuse a legitimate component of civil discourse, of debate? Does it strengthen an argument? There are some on the “left” who choose to be verbally abusive toward their opponents, and in doing so they harm their cause. I would have thought that “conservatives” would have profited from the lesson and avoided making the same mistake.

“Misrepresentation?”

No. I give you only what I think, what I believe. I have been accused of speaking for the “gay movement”, of expressing the “gay agenda.” I have also been accused of writing on the wrong, conservative site. Well, I don’t know any of those “gay movement” sites, and don’t care what they are saying. I don’t speak for other gays and they don’t speak for me. And I certainly don’t care what the “gay movement” was doing in the 1800’s, as retire05 wants. I’M speaking to you. I’M writing this, it’s not coming from some theoretical cabal of conspirators. Just me.

Every time one of you accuses me or anyone else of misrepresentation, of lying, you automatically kill the conversation. If you want no conversation, why respond at all?

@MataHarley:

– I call it that because they attack innocents… mostly their own Muslim peers…as part of their mainstay warfare. No. That is not bravery. They are no better than loons or defective cockroach humans, praying on unsuspecting children. Worse since they do it in the name of their version of “Islam”, which the majority of their peers so do not share. So they are equally mentally and morally challenged.

So no… strapping explosives around their waist doesn’t require “courage”. What it requires is disconnected, demented and ill-placed devoted beliefs and intelligent analysis.

When you belong to a religious death cult that celebrates the afterlife reward of 73 virgins for martyrdom to be superior to the herelife, where’s the courage? Courage is what Marine Cpl Jason Dunham had when he didn’t want to die, didn’t plan to die, yet did what he did anyway, to save the lives of others.

Along with the Looming Tower, a supplemental read would be Michael Scheuer’s book on bin Laden; because in it, he points out areas where he believes Lawrence Wright gets his information wrong. I have respect for both books.

@George Wells:

Yet our military adventure in Iraq was justified by the simplest of excuses – that Saddam had WMDs.

Talk about “simplest”. I suggest you go back and re-read the justifications put forth for why it was past high-time to forcefully remove Saddam. The case built was far more than just wmd stockpile possession. And if you look back at much of the language used, mostly Bush and others in his administration in speeches and on the Sunday morning shows, spoke about the “not knowing”, and warned this was part of the problem.

@George Wells:

WMDs WERE part of the reasoning. They were the principle reason given.

Read Feith’s book. Feith believes the case for removing Saddam did not hinge upon the WMD issue (he did believe that the existence of WMD programs was far more important than the question of WMD stockpiles; for chemical and biological, you don’t need to harbor and maintain vast stockpiles- those can be developed at the ready; and as the post-war Duelfer Report showed, Saddam retained both the capabilities and intent).

But the rationale for war did not actually stand or fall on the accuracy of CIA and UNSCOM assessments of Iraq’s WMD stockpiles. The danger was that Saddam might someday soon provide terrorists with WMD- biological weapons, for example. Our concern was not simply that he might do so out of stockpiles he kept on hand, for we knew Iraq could produce biological weapons within a matter of weeks in the dual-use facilities he maintained for this purpose. Administration officials didn’t feel comfortable guessing whether production of WMD or a transfer of WMD to terrorists was “imminent”. We knew our intelligence wasn’t reliable, precise, or timely enough to allow us to count on seeing such activity before it occurred- or even promptly after.-Douglas Feith, War and Decision pg 225

I agree though, that for public support and UN consumption, Powell delivered the WMD emphasis.

The reason only morphed into what a bad actor Saddam was after it became apparent that WMDs were nowhere to be found.

Pleased go back and read the AUMF. “bad actor” was always a big part of the justification put forth.

But you’re right in that when WMD stockpiles were not found, the WH made the PR mistake to quit defending its prewar decisions and started talking in the language of “nation-building”, freedom, and democracy.

Whether you call it Preemptive War or Preventative War, the meaning and effect are essentially the same. Mincing the words doesn’t distract from the danger such a doctrine poses.

I’m not the one who makes the distinction. Look them up.

The First Gulf War was widely supported BECAUSE Iraq HAD invaded Kuwait, while the Second one was not, BECAUSE Iraq had NOT done anything more that talk trash and back it up by giving the UN a hard time.

Countries such as France weren’t willing to go to war not out of altruistic, noble, high-minded beliefs but because they had a vested self-interest in keeping Saddam in power.

:

Yes, there has been an abundance of courage demonstrated by our forces. Among our forces are some who doubtless question our presence in the Middle-East, and it is a measure of their nobility and courage that they do their jobs without hesitation. True heroes all. By omission I did not mean to imply otherwise. I was attempting to make the point that the enemy is not without courage as well, for to assume otherwise would grossly mischaracterize and underestimate them. It borders on insanity that they attack us at all, but it also reflects on our parochial (as in “narrow”) perspective that we view their motivation as “insane.” We are unable to think as they do, and vice-versa.

Thank you for conceding (“I agree…” and “But you’re right…”) that these mistakes were made. At the time, I argued that the Bush team had damaged their own case by playing it so sloppily. I even wondered why the Bush team didn’t just PLANT some WMD evidence and then do the “I-Told-You-So” dance. Without seeming too cynical, isn’t the PR at least as important as the truth?

“Preemptive War or Preventative War” – both terms have been used to characterize the “Bush Doctrine.” Neither term characterizes the spirit of honorable warfare. Either can be used interchangeably to justify attacking an “unappreciated” neighbor. There may be a time and a place for one OR the other, but Iraq was neither.

You demonstrate ample skill at bringing reference detail into play, and I have little doubt that the material so offered would support your arguments. I stipulate that they do. I do not read them because however correct they may be, they are irrelevant. They are irrelevant because what the American public does – and what the World does – is not based upon the truth. Certainly not complicated truth. There are too many conflicting versions of the truth, and the masses are not smart enough to evaluate them correctly. What matters is what they believe, and as you so eloquently point out, what is widely believed is a gross oversimplification of the truth. Think “Occam’s Razor.” That’s how the real world thinks. Ivory Tower over-intellectualization of issues may convince a Supreme Court justice, but loses the average Joe, and it’s the average-Joe’s money and votes that are the life’s blood of politics and so inform the decisions politicians make.

“Countries such as France weren’t willing to go to war not out of altruistic, noble, high-minded beliefs but because they had a vested self-interest in keeping Saddam in power.”

Exactly true, but you missed my point. It doesn’t matter whether other countries’ support was noble or opportunistic. What mattered was whether they did or did not support the effort. When we were able to cobble together only an embarrassingly small and largely insignificant group of allies for GWII, it was painfully obvious who was going to foot the bill.

@George Wells:

When we were able to cobble together only an embarrassingly small and largely insignificant group of allies for GWII, it was painfully obvious who was going to foot the bill.

Coalition Forces / Iraq vs. Libya

Coalition Countries – Iraq – 2003

Afghanistan,
Albania
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bulgaria
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Georgia
Hungary
Italy
Japan
South Korea
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Philippines
Poland
Romania
Slovakia
Spain
Turkey
United Kingdom
Uzbekistan

[Source: US State Department]

Coalition – Libya – 2011

United States
France
United Kingdom
Italy
Canada
Belgium
Denmark
Norway
Qatar
Spain
Greece
Germany
Poland
Jordan
Morocco
United Arab Emirate

Facts just are not your friend, are they, George?

You complain that we had “an embarrasingly small and insignificant group of allies for GWII, yet make no mention of the painfully embarrasingly small and insignificant group of allies Obama had for his actions in Libya., If you remove the United States from the Libya list, Bush had twice the support Obama had.

Please, feel free to continue to embarrass yourself.

@George Wells: George and Word #’s 97 & 98–That’s what I’d call an intelligent debate. Thank you both!
Semper Fi

George Wells
you keep loosing the most important event, who is the deciding force
for PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH to be in a position to retaliate,
there was no WHY, or yes or no or should I,
there was a obligation to do it, because they had to be remembered
that no COUNTRIES MESS UP WITH AMERICA AND GET AWAY WITH IT,
the thread has been broken by the OBAMA incompetence probably willingly,
push by his affiliation with the MUSLIM WORLD, making him choose between them getting away with murder and AMERICA he showed no closeness, du to his upbringing with the other he learned to love their politicize religion he find peaceful and the most beautifull things, song and all,
as oppose to the LONG STANDING CHRISTIANITY establish in AMERICA, protecting her,
from exactly what he had embrace before he was PRESIDENT but kept secret until he could not restrain himself, and showed his belongning to the MUSLIMS with actions, and giving wealth gained by the PEOPLE he was suppose to serve, he showed it by taking their sides and refuse the punishment needed for the PROTECTION OF AMERICA which he endangered the foundamental security of AMERICANS,
by his non actions.
while the AMERICANS where reduce to continue and even upscale the AIRPORT body checks they
hated but went along because they where sold the security need.
and him disregarding the basic need of counteracting the haters seeking to destroy in AMERICA
without any punishment whatsoever,
thing the FORTH HOOD MASSACRE, THINK THE BOSTON MASSACRE,
think the ALQAEDA BENGHASI MASSACRE,

@Richard Wheeler:

You are very welcome!