...ah, I was once young and idealistic too. But, then I read my history books, and I've been a cynic ever since--especially with regard to the stated 'intentions' of US foreign policy.

If Hussein did not have WMDs as he claimed, wasn't he in fact in compliance with the UN resolutions? What exactly did he do to "provoke us"? To invade a country on false pretext, and then stay for "nation building" is just so unlibertarian. Did any one in this country, including congress, actually get to vote on this? Or should presidents, in an unlibertarian kind of way, just go around and make a one man decision for the rest of us and committ us as a nation to "nation building" wherever he sees fit in the world? Why bother with democracy at all? By the way, your direct control by the Iraqi people argument seems to neglect the fact that their new prime minister, to the surpirse of the UN, has just been appointed by the "Iraqi Governing Council", our hand picked lackeys who claim to run Iraq. They picked a former CIA informant. I bet he's going to be popular!

Kirk

1) Saddam routinely fired missles at our planes patroling the no-fly zone. As I recall he offered a 20K bonus for any weapons systems operator that was able to bring down a us plane.

Does this qualify as a reason to go after him? I suspect if you were flying the plane you might think it was.

2) Uhh... Check me if I'm wrong here but the Congress DID vote on the issue - it backed Bush to take out Saddam with direct military action. Mr Flip-flop even voted for war....

1) Better check your facts. I don't beleive they ever actually fired a missle at all. They tracked us with radar, and if they did, we wiped them out. We used them as a punching bag for years. The 20k reward thng sounds pretty suspect. I've never heard it before and it sounds like some of the Soviet style disinformation planted by Cheney and Chalabi in the media.

2) The Congress never authorized Bush to unilaterly invade Iraq. It was the act of not securing UN involvment in this war
that makes this a war of agression, and a war of choice, and him a violater of the UN Charter and the Congressional resolution authorizing the war. By the way, did you find any congressional resolution authorizing "nation building in Iraq" ? I'm still looking for one.

I always find it amusing when someone calls Kerry "Flip flopper" when Bush flips and flops on everything, all the time:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/3/7/213753/1954

I have one question. Estimates of shredded, gased, raped to death, beheaded shot beaten Iraqis in 30 years of power range from 500,000 to 7 million. Even using the low estimate of 500,000 which is 16,666 people a year or 45 men women and children a day.

Isn't that enough to justify taking the guy out? It was in 1998 why not now?

I do subscribe to the notion that Bush 1 screwed up by abiding by the UN charter and not getting him the first time BTW.

Oh, great....here we go with the UN crap again....so if we must:

NO, he was NOT in compliance. Have you even read the resolution? Obviously not. The resolution placed the burden on HIM to provide adequate evidence that he no longer had the weapons. He did not provide this proof. Instead he provided deception, denial, lies, denial of access, lack of cooperation....All of this placed him in violation. Add that to his continual violation of the no-fly zone, his goons continually taking shots at our planes and soldiers....How many times must I repeat myself on this subject?

Yes, we ALL got to "vote on this". In 2000, we voted to elect a President, and like it or not, Bush was elected. Part of his job as President is to be Commander-in-Chief, which makes it his DUTY to make what you call a "one-man decision for the rest of us".

We cannot hold a nationwide vote every time our military is going to take action. We hold elections periodically to choose a leader to make these decisions for us. That is why the President is called "Commander-in-Chief". Don't like it? Then do your part to elect a different Commander-in-Chief for the next term.

Do I really need to teach civics class here?

Mike

__________________
_____
1979 300 SD
350,000 miles
_____
1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
_____
1985 300TD
270,000 miles
_____
1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
www.myspace.com/openskystudio
www.myspace.com/speedxband
www.myspace.com/openskyseparators
www.myspace.com/doubledrivemusic

Kirk

I knew you would not like my earlier examples, if the 3-4 million dead that Medmech posted about (I know... this is not true either right?) are not enough how about this one?

Remember when Saddam tried to send a couple of Iraq hit men over to the USA to kill Bush 41?

Don't tell me let me guess... this makes Saddam a freedom fighter right?

Your hate has made you unable to accept, or even consider, any position that is in agreement with your world view.

Mike,

You do not need to teach a civics lesson. But you should check into how much authority the President actually has to declare war, or go to war without making a declaration. GWB actually needed the resolution Congress passed to do what he did. The bone of contention is that he acted with the resolution in his pocket, without complying with all the terms of the resolution. Refer to The War Powers Resolution from November 7, 1973.

When he is accused of making a one-man decision for all of us, the issue is not whether at that point in time he had the authority to do so, had he followed the conditions of the resolution. The issue is, if the resolution says, for argument's sake, you have to stand on your head for 3 hours before you can start the war, and you only stand on your head for 1 hour, then go to war, you are not in compliance with the resolution. It would appear not anyway. Kind of like Saddam, eh? A little nod in the direction of compliance by Saddam isn't good enough, and should not be good enough from our President.

Also, the UN imposed the resolutions on Saddam, and UN did not agree with our virtually unilateral assessment that the next step in the process was war (yeah, we had the Brits on our side of this, and a slew of other dependent countries that couldn't defend themselves, much less help us in any material way in Iraq, on board but that is literally a farce and we should all be able to see that). To be legal, the UN needed to agree the original resolutions were being violated, and the UN said it needed more data to make that assessment. The UN's focus was not on nation building or freeing the people of Iraq from Saddam. It was on the subject of the resolutions, WMD. Finding and eliminating the WMD. I believe our Congressional resolution was instrumental in getting Saddam to allow UN inspectors back in. By their assessment and the majority of the rest of the UN, Saddam was in compliance enough to warrant another reprise and give the UN weapons inspectors another chance at that point. It was the safest and surest way to avoid WMD, if he had them, from being unleashed in the name of looking for them to eliminate them before they were used.

I have said this a number of times before, and I will repeat it here because I am the one typing this. We have much better means to watch and track things we want to than we did in the early 1960's. Our response in the Cuban Missile Crisis was made legal according to the UN by revealing data that was irrefutable. We could even tell the nationality of the guys setting the stuff up. We offered no such evidence this time around. When we got in there, we had no idea where to look for the WMD. So, we either weren't looking and did not see what Saddam did with them, or they were no longer there in early 2003.

If we were going to go to war over an imminent threat posed by someone's WMD, and we did not even focus our efforts on knowing where they were or if they were there at all before going in, I think it looks like we were going in for some other reason and what Congress said, or the UN said, GWB saw fit to ignore. A one-man decision that he does not have the authority to make either as President, or with the Congressional resolution he put in his pocket.

That was the point. Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

A curiosity: When we were all listening to the candidates in 2000, who were then talking about Social Security lock boxes and the like, and one of whom (G.W. Bush) at least was proclaiming his absolute disapproval of nation building, would any of us have said then that Iraq was some sort of priority? And please, please do not reply by saying that 9/11 changed all that, because 9/11 and Iraq are not now, and have never been, related.

It is amazing to me how many people now are passionate about Saddam Hussein atrocities when, for years, he was committing them and nary a word was spoken.

Bush elected to go to war, for what reasons, we can only speculate. Clearly, the reasons he told the Congress and the American people have turned out to be bogus.

Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator, but he was being contained by the U.N. sanctions (the same U.N. that is here regularly belittled). And he was an evil dictator that American foreign policy created. When he was happily killing Iranians, we offered comfort and assistance, just as we armed Osama bin Laden when he was happily killing Soviet communists. And AFTER he had gassed the Kurds, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney had no problem shaking his hand on the tarmac of the Bagdhad airport.

There is one thing that can be said about American foreign policy in the years after WW II--there has been too much of it. This is, in so many words, precisely what Congressman Ron Paul (R--Texas) says, and I agree with him wholeheartedly.

Joe B.

Bush 41 had the chance to do something about Saddam trying to whack him. He didn't. Why not? I also did not see it mentioned in the congressional resolution authorizing the war. And as far as the freedom fighter thing goes, don't give me crap about whose a "hater" when you vomit $hit like that on me.

I am sorry Saddam killed all those people, many of whom were killed when Iraq was our ally against the Iranians from 1980 to 1991, you remember, when we were selling him poison gas technology to use on his Iranian neighbors? Yoy know, the good old days when Rumsfel was shaking his hand around the same time Saddam was gassing the Kurds. How consistent of us to pull this reason out of the hat now. They were such inconvenient facts then. Of course, shortly before that, our allies in Chile and Argentina were rounding up people by the 1000s and dropping them into the ocean from planes and such, and our GuatemaIeand and El Salvadoran allies were simply shooting their people to death, just 60,000 or so. Ah, yes, I remember our great humanitarian invasions of those countries. I think that was around the same time we invaded South Africa.

I have this rather quaint idea that the people who live in a given country have a duty to free themselves if they are oppressed. If they are not willing to die for their freedom, then why should one of my kids do it for them? The people of the United States, as taxpayers and citizens who must give their lives or their childrens lives, are not obligated to be the savior of the world. If this had been given as the reason to invade Iraq, the congress would have said no. Otherwise, please prepare for our invasion of China.

I can think of no greater act of hate than use military weapons against the civilian poulations of countries that did not attack us. Actually, if you really want to see a good picture of hate, please review our wonderful Iraqi prison montage. The come back and give me some more self righteous BS.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm

Yes, he needed the approval of Congress, and he got it.

This is the first talk I've heard of him not being in compliance with particulars of the resolution from Congress. If that is proven to be the case, then there is another discussion to have.

However, that still would not change my opinion that the right thing has been done, "big picture"-wise......Saddam is gone, and EVERYONE is better off as a result.

Mike


PS I forgot to address your "to be legal, the UN needed to agree..." comment...We must NOT consider ourselves a ward of the UN, and there is nothing "illegal" about taking actions that we feel are neccessary to protect our interests.

This ever-growing mindset that we are "subordinate" in any way to the UN is the scariest thing of all.

__________________
_____
1979 300 SD
350,000 miles
_____
1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
_____
1985 300TD
270,000 miles
_____
1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
www.myspace.com/openskystudio
www.myspace.com/speedxband
www.myspace.com/openskyseparators
www.myspace.com/doubledrivemusic

I wish I knew...but at least the job has been finished NOW.

THIS I agree with....I favor a general policy of non-intervention...but there are exceptions to every rule. Removing Saddam was not simply an act of charity. We had a list of reasons dating back 15 years or more for giving him the boot.

Blah, blah, blah....During the invasion of Iraq, our military took measures to avoid civilian casualties that were UNPRECEDENTED, by any country's military, EVER. We did NOT attack the civilian population. Where you get this absurd idea, I do not know.

Blah, blah, blah, once again... Yes, it sucks what a few of our soldiers did. .....BUT......We are talking about prisoners, NOT "innocent" civilians. Prisoners that were prisoners for a REASON. Stack these images up next to images of the 500,000+ INNOCENT people that were tortured, raped, and murdered by Saddam over the past decade or two, and I think your stack will come up pretty damn short.

Mike

__________________
_____
1979 300 SD
350,000 miles
_____
1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
_____
1985 300TD
270,000 miles
_____
1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
www.myspace.com/openskystudio
www.myspace.com/speedxband
www.myspace.com/openskyseparators
www.myspace.com/doubledrivemusic

Jim

Thanks for the sumation - you are the only person on the other side of this issue that makes rational well thought out arguments.
I don't agee with you but I can cleary see your points - and I can understand why you feel the way you do.

Kirk

I'm sorry you feel like I puked on you - it was an attempt at sarcasm. Maybe a little over the edge but like most sarcastic comments it works because it has an edge of truth to it. I've read many of your posts over the last month or two that could have had the freedom fighter comment inserted pretty much unchanged.

I'm getting tired of answering your absurd questions - this will be my last post on this thread. Bush 41 could not have gone after Saddam because the attempt on his life did not come until AFTER has was out of office, but don't worry Mr Clinton DID actually respond. He did fire a couple of dozen cruise missles into Iraq a couple of months after he came into office.

I guess maybe even Bill Clinton did not like Saddam at some point.

Your insinuation that I have some kind of positive image of Saddam or am some kind of supporter is insulting. If you think you can find something in one of my posts that supports that idea, you should post them and skip the baseless insinuations. Insinuations and innuendo are cheap shots that add nothing to the discussion at hand, and is typical of the whole "Enemy Within" crap you guys provide in the place of actual intellectual argument. We're just a bunch of traitors, right?

I looked at your posts, you never answered anything I ever asked.

If Bush #I had wanted Saddam gone, he had the best shot, and didn't take it.

Mike,

You are correct about the issue of whether or not we need to get the UN's approval to do something, when we feel threatened and are taking whatever action we are taking in self defense. Ultimately we can decide to take action that is not endorsed by the UN. But the world is a little place, and just because we can does not always mean we should. I think we all know what we can do. The debate swirls around what we should have done, and what we should do.

Along with making any decision comes certain consequences. One of my old sayings is the difference between a good decision and bad decision is, good decisions never come back to be remade and rehashed. If the decision was a good one, a problem got solved, not nurtured and grown into a bigger one.

One of the consequences we face now is, we find ourselves in a jam and need some help from the UN (lets not argue now whether we need it or just want it). Had they endorsed our action they would be obliged to lend a hand. However, we basically gave them the bird as we loaded up and went after Saddam. The UN as a whole did not agree the extent of the Saddam breeches of the prior UN resolutions warranted an attack, especially since he had reverted to his cooperative version of Saddam and let the inspectors back in.

The possibility that the WMD that existed in 1990 or so had been destroyed, and Saddam had not reconstituted his nuclear weapons program, was real to the rest of the UN. We acted like we had some superior knowledge and the UN inspectors just did not know where to look, or how to look without getting bamboozled. I bought it, and so apparently did many others. But after more than a year we cannot show anyone a better place to look or come up with the WMD. And now the UN outlook appears to have been more reasoned and reasonable when you look back. Yeah, it is 20-20 hindsight, except some leaders from some nations had that view ahead of time.

A measure of the capability of a leader is his ability to get people to do what he wants, sometimes against their better judgement, when he needs to. GWB and the US needs the UN but elected to avoid taking on this challenge when it was timely. Now, to get the UN to help us, and defray some of the pain in the arse having to pay for them and have them in this country, we have to address the issue of whether what we did was a good thing from their perspective all over again. And, being realistic, getting them to jump in now is much harder than it would have been before we created the present situation in Iraq. Even after swallowing the "I told you so" response in a few hundred languages, it is going to be difficult to get anyone to agree to jump into the present day Iraq to help us with maintaining order by sending men and women into that hornet's nest.

As for the non-compliance issue with GWB and the resolution, like with the UN standards for judging whether Saddam was in violation of their sanctions and resolutions, it is a matter of judgement. There has been no case presented that the day we went in was necessary because the United States national security was at risk from a real time threat of WMD posed by Iraq, and that the UN and other diplomatic paths had been thoroughly explored and were now unable to stem this immediate threat. Reading the resolution, that was what was required. I think GWB's effort to comply was more like Saddam's nod to the UN sanctions and resolutions while he went on doing whatever he wanted to do. But the resolution, which I posted in this or another thread a few days ago, was not a "George, we trust you to do the right thing, so attack when you see fit" type of resolution. It said, "George, go get the UN to back you, and then go in, unless there is an imminent danger to the United States national security from these WMD and you cannot get the UN to agree, in which case, if you go in, you have to tell us why before hand, or within 48 hours...."

The explanation for why diplomatic efforts and the UN were ineffective look more like "I just couldn't be bothered with those, and we all know the UN and diplomacy were letting Saddam make more of these WMD for the last 10 years so I just had to put an end to it." In the weeks running up to the advent of "Shock and Awe" we actually put a deadline on the UN inspectors to either find the WMD or get out. Seemed like it was rational if you knew where they were, but in hindsight it sure seems like UN actions and diplomacy were not on the agenda. Afterall we have been searching like there is no tomorrow for a year and can't find hide nor hair of the WMD.

I have no crystal ball, and based on how things have unfolded my view of GWB's trustworthiness has a distinctly brownish overtone so I would not want to contaminate my crystal ball, if I had one, with a severe case of locked up eyeanus nerve. Might render everything I see in the crystal ball a little brown.

I do not subscribe to the excuse he is just that stupid. I think he took all the actions he took, and said all the things he said, on purpose and fully aware of the truth and how he portrayed the facts he knew to serve his purpose. I also think he purposely did not explain his plans, mislead Congress, and never intended to do anything to specifically try to comply with the detailed requirements of the Congressional resolution. If diplomacy had accidentally succeeded in the closing days, I think he would have only recognized it after he attacked Iraq. He has an agenda that he needs to explain. He could be right, but the longer he plays this game of "catch me if you can" the less likely it is anyone will buy his story in the end. Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)