| srt-4 |
01-26-2007 12:02 AM |
[QUOTE=cbmartinez;14088128]My mistake, he was killed by the Bush Administration.
I don't know, it seems like we're going to get into an argument of semantics, when do we interfere and when do we not, you know? Having troops in Iraq during Clinton's administration isn't the same as what is going on now. In Kosovo, Clinton was working behind NATO, which is a lot different than defying the UN blatantly like we did in Iraq. Again, it's semantics, sure it they both defied the UN but at least by acting as part of the NATO force, there was less chance of long term and large scale commitment. Hey, maybe it was just luck that we went in and out of Kosovo so fast and Bush is stuck in Iraq, but being a Democrat, I gotta point more effective military strategy. As far as humanitarian cause, again, it all goes back to semantics. Humanitarian doesn't mean supporting every thing, risk and the seriousness of the event must be assessed. Darfur, 400,000 dead, 2 million displaced, Kosovo, 850,000 displaced. These things are pretty imminent humanitarian conflicts to me. And similarly, both of these regions are in political disarray. Now, I've never been able to establish a real number for how many people Saddam supposedly killed. Sure he suppressed but the government was stable and suppression exists everywhere. I simply don't see Iraq as a serious enough conflict for us to be involved, an the UN didn't think so either (I know, they didn't think Kosovo was either). Sure, their were the reasons of WMDs and the harboring of Al Qaeda but time has proven both of these accusations to be false. The War In Iraq is a big mess but the hypocrisy that goes on within foreign policy just makes it all the more upsetting. North Korea is clearly a more imminent threat, Darfur is clearly more imminent (UN think so on this one), even Iran is more imminent. The reason we're in Iraq is for oil. George W. Bush lied to the American public from day one. There were no WMDs, Saddam was not harboring Al Qaeda, and the mission sure as hell wasn't accomplished in 2003.
As far as the Clinton thing, I didn't mean to attack you man (preemptive strike heheh). You're the smartest guy on here in regards to politics and you definitely have me on a couple of those points. I definitely need to think this stuff over. In the mean time, I wait for your response.[/QUOTE]
Ya, the operations in Iraq under Clinton were very different, I was just saying that the change was in nature of involvement, not area of involvement. And I can completely understand you disagreeing with those changes.
As far as that involvement goes, the majority of the Iraqi people wanted Hussein gone, the majority of the governments in the region wanted him gone, and we wanted him gone. The status quo was no good. Over about a decade, there were nearly endless combat air patrols over half of Iraq, numerous air strikes, attempts by the Iraqis to shoot down aircraft, refusals to admit weapons inspectors, ect. The only ways that it would end were if the US finally gave up trying to keep Hussein in check or if the regime was ended. By looking at his history, we can see that there is no way he would ever have been safe to leave in power unchecked. So that left only one option for changing the status quo.
You see it as hypocritical that we took action against Iraq, but not Iran or North Korea. Well, the situations are different for all three of those states. The situations are such that military action against North Korea was/is very unappealing for various reasons that I won’t get into for the sake of post length, but I’m sure you are already aware of. With Iran, four years ago it was much less of a threat than it is today. At that time, Iraq appeared to be a more significant threat. It was estimated that Iran was a decade away from a bomb at that time, and the current extremist president of Iran wasn’t in power either. Also, a military option, while possible, was far from ideal, and it likely would have turned out much worse at its best than Iraq could have turned out if done right. If handled much better, Iraq really could have been one of the easiest, most bloodless "regime changes" possible. Iraq was the logical choice for a threat to deal with militarily for that reason and also because it would have probably brought Iran into check too. Remember that after it appeared that the US had ending Hussein’s regime effortlessly that Libya gave up its weapons program. Well, the creation of a stable, US-back Iraqi government with US military bases in Iraq would, in my opinion, have led Iran in the same direction. Just look at how much our difficulty in Iraq has emboldened Iran. Our success would have had just as significant an effect but in the opposite way, and done much to diminish other threats in the region (this may seem like a stretch, but history shows many times how geopolitical shifts like that have this remarkable ability to alter other geopolitical realities).
So a success in Iraq would have greatly improved our geopolitical position in the world, as well as that of our allies, and would have only had bad effects for the Iraqis that were part of Hussein's regime and our other enemies in the region, such as Iran and the Islamic extremists. The problem was that it got completely ****ed up. Bush trusted some very experienced people but they failed. As you can tell, I agreed with the goal in Iraq for the most part. However, I disagree with nearly every single aspect of its execution, up until a few weeks ago. Its hard to imagine how it could have been handled worse. Bush is the leader, its all on him, like he stated: “mistakes have been made, and the responsibility rests with me.”
As far as the lying goes, I don’t think he was attempting to deceive the American people. When he declared “victory”, he believed that. It took quite a while for many in the administration to get their heads out of their asses and realize what was really going on. As far as intelligence goes, I don’t think he was really lying to the American people there either. I think he truly believed Saddam had the weapons. Basically there were some contradictory reports, and Hussein either had the weapons or he didn’t, both positions can’t be true. Bush believed he did, so he accepted the intelligence that backed that position as true and rejected the opposing. It turned out to be wrong, and he bears responsibility for that. But the idea that Bush led America to believe Saddam had wmds, while Bush actually believed that he didn’t isn’t accurate in my opinion. The idea that Hussein was somehow connected to 9/11 was completely untrue. I agree with you there. However, it is true that there were links to terrorism.
And could you elaborate on your war for oil statement?
On NATO, it’s a military organization, not a political one. I agree it would have been much better if we had more international support; I really wish that had been the case. But I think a military alliance should be brought into a war only if it serves a military purpose, not a political one. In this case, having NATO involved would have done more harm than good. We had more than enough military capability with the “coalition of the willing.” Having the under-trained, under-equipped, largely ineffective forces that make up much of the rest of NATO there would not have been helpful. Much of this was demonstrated in Kosovo.
And thanks for the compliment. In not too long you could know more than I do now. I’m discussing this so much with you because I respect your opinion. Most places on the internet where this stuff is discussed, like the political forum on this site, I avoid due to the type of people that are usually participating in the discussions.
hopefully all that rambling made some sense. haha.
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