Bush to Saddam: Get out of Iraq in two days or prepare to die.

[Darunia]

*Declares Formal State of War on Doonesbury; Gary Trudeau; This Mordern World; Tom Morrow, and A Black Falcon.*

[alien space marine]

questions Darunia actions and Vetos the hole thing and will not permit hostile invasions without council aproval.

[Great Rumbler]

Emperor Rumbler vetos the council by blowing it to bits and then also declares war on the comics.

[alien space marine]

Nukes the U.N and takes over the world.

[A Black Falcon]

Now, violence doesn't solve problems...

[Great Rumbler]

I know that...*punches ABF in the face* What? He had it coming!

[Weltall]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
Now, violence doesn't solve problems...

It solved Hitler!

[Darunia]

Now, now...take this fighting to the Story Thread. This thread is about how dumb liberals are.

[A Black Falcon]

First, Darunia, its "Tom Tomorrow" (no, not his real name... :) ) not Tom Morrow... :)

And I had the impression that this thread was showing how foolish the conservatives look... especially when their main "reason" for war, WMD, has failed to show any results...

[A Black Falcon]

*after reading thread at Nintendorks, restarts debate over Iraq*

http://www.plinkomedia.com/forum/viewtop...0871#70871

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/06/findla....dean.wmd/

(FindLaw) -- President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a joint resolution authorizing the use of U.S. military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake -- acts of war against another nation.

Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away -- unless, perhaps, they start another war.

That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of President Bush's warmaking.

Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced his resignation.

Frankly, I hope the WMDs are found, for it will end the matter. Clearly, the story of the missing WMDs is far from over. And it is too early, of course, to draw conclusions. But it is not too early to explore the relevant issues.
President Bush's statements on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

Readers may not recall exactly what President Bush said about weapons of mass destruction; I certainly didn't. Thus, I have compiled these statements below. In reviewing them, I saw that he had, indeed, been as explicit and declarative as I had recalled.

Bush's statements, in chronological order, were:

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."

United Nations address, September 12, 2002

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."

"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."

Radio address, October 5, 2002

"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."

"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."

"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."

Cincinnati, Ohio speech, October 7, 2002

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."

State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

Address to the nation, March 17, 2003
Should the president get the benefit of the doubt?

When these statements were made, Bush's let-me-mince-no-words posture was convincing to many Americans. Yet much of the rest of the world, and many other Americans, doubted them.

As Bush's veracity was being debated at the United Nations, it was also being debated on campuses -- including those where I happened to be lecturing at the time.

On several occasions, students asked me the following question: Should they believe the president of the United States? My answer was that they should give the President the benefit of the doubt, for several reasons deriving from the usual procedures that have operated in every modern White House and that, I assumed, had to be operating in the Bush White House, too.

First, I assured the students that these statements had all been carefully considered and crafted. Presidential statements are the result of a process, not a moment's though. White House speechwriters process raw information, and their statements are passed on to senior aides who have both substantive knowledge and political insights. And this all occurs before the statement ever reaches the President for his own review and possible revision.

Second, I explained that -- at least in every White House and administration with which I was familiar, from Truman to Clinton -- statements with national security implications were the most carefully considered of all. The White House is aware that, in making these statements, the president is speaking not only to the nation, but also to the world.

Third, I pointed out to the students, these statements are typically corrected rapidly if they are later found to be false. And in this case, far from backpedaling from the President's more extreme claims, Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer had actually, at times, been even more emphatic than the President had. For example, on January 9, 2003, Fleischer stated, during his press briefing, "We know for a fact that there are weapons there."

In addition, others in the Bush administration were similarly quick to back the President up, in some cases with even more unequivocal statements. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly claimed that Saddam had WMDs -- and even went so far as to claim he knew "where they are; they're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."

Finally, I explained to the students that the political risk was so great that, to me, it was inconceivable that Bush would make these statements if he didn't have damn solid intelligence to back him up. Presidents do not stick their necks out only to have them chopped off by political opponents on an issue as important as this, and if there was any doubt, I suggested, Bush's political advisers would be telling him to hedge. Rather than stating a matter as fact, he would be say: "I have been advised," or "Our intelligence reports strongly suggest," or some such similar hedge. But Bush had not done so.

So what are we now to conclude if Bush's statements are found, indeed, to be as grossly inaccurate as they currently appear to have been?

After all, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and given Bush's statements, they should not have been very hard to find -- for they existed in large quantities, "thousands of tons" of chemical weapons alone. Moreover, according to the statements, telltale facilities, groups of scientists who could testify, and production equipment also existed.

So where is all that? And how can we reconcile the White House's unequivocal statements with the fact that they may not exist?

There are two main possibilities. One, that something is seriously wrong within the Bush White House's national security operations. That seems difficult to believe. The other is that the president has deliberately misled the nation, and the world.
A desperate search for WMDs has so far yielded little, if any, fruit

Even before formally declaring war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the president had dispatched American military special forces into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, which he knew would provide the primary justification for Operation Freedom. None were found.

Throughout Operation Freedom's penetration of Iraq and drive toward Baghdad, the search for WMDs continued. None were found.

As the coalition forces gained control of Iraqi cities and countryside, special search teams were dispatched to look for WMDs. None were found.

During the past two and a half months, according to reliable news reports, military patrols have visited over 300 suspected WMD sites throughout Iraq. None of the prohibited weapons were found there.
British and American press reaction to the missing WMDs

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is also under serious attack in England, which he dragged into the war unwillingly, based on the missing WMDs. In Britain, the missing WMDs are being treated as scandalous; so far, the reaction in the U.S. has been milder.

New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has taken Bush sharply to task, asserting that it is "long past time for this administration to be held accountable." "The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat," Krugman argued. "If that claim was fraudulent," he continued, "the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history -- worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra." But most media outlets have reserved judgment as the search for WMDs in Iraq continues.

Still, signs do not look good. Last week, the Pentagon announced it was shifting its search from looking for WMD sites, to looking for people who can provide leads as to where the missing WMDs might be.

Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, while offering no new evidence, assured Congress that WMDs would indeed be found. And he advised that a new unit called the Iraq Survey Group, composed of some 1400 experts and technicians from around the world, is being deployed to assist in the searching.

But, as Time magazine reported, the leads are running out. According to Time, the Marine general in charge explained that "[w]e've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad," and remarked flatly, "They're simply not there."

Perhaps most troubling, the president has failed to provide any explanation of how he could have made his very specific statements, yet now be unable to back them up with supporting evidence. Was there an Iraqi informant thought to be reliable, who turned out not to be? Were satellite photos innocently, if negligently misinterpreted? Or was his evidence not as solid as he led the world to believe?

The absence of any explanation for the gap between the statements and reality only increases the sense that the President's misstatements may actually have been intentional lies.
Investigating The Iraqi War intelligence reports

Even now, while the jury is still out as to whether intentional misconduct occurred, the President has a serious credibility problem. Newsweek magazine posed the key questions: "If America has entered a new age of pre-emption —when it must strike first because it cannot afford to find out later if terrorists possess nuclear or biological weapons—exact intelligence is critical. How will the United States take out a mad despot or a nuclear bomb hidden in a cave if the CIA can't say for sure where they are? And how will Bush be able to maintain support at home and abroad?"

In an apparent attempt to bolster the President's credibility, and his own, Secretary Rumsfeld himself has now called for a Defense Department investigation into what went wrong with the pre-war intelligence. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd finds this effort about on par with O.J.'s looking for his wife's killer. But there may be a difference: Unless the members of Administration can find someone else to blame -- informants, surveillance technology, lower-level personnel, you name it -- they may not escape fault themselves.

Congressional committees are also looking into the pre-war intelligence collection and evaluation. Senator John Warner, R-Virginia, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee would jointly investigate the situation. And the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence plans an investigation.

These investigations are certainly appropriate, for there is potent evidence of either a colossal intelligence failure or misconduct -- and either would be a serious problem. When the best case scenario seems to be mere incompetence, investigations certainly need to be made.

Sen. Bob Graham -- a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- told CNN's Aaron Brown, that while he still hopes they finds WMDs or at least evidence thereof, he has also contemplated three other possible alternative scenarios:

One is that [the WMDs] were spirited out of Iraq, which maybe is the worst of all possibilities, because now the very thing that we were trying to avoid, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, could be in the hands of dozens of groups. Second, that we had bad intelligence. Or third, that the intelligence was satisfactory but that it was manipulated, so as just to present to the American people and to the world those things that made the case for the necessity of war against Iraq.

Sen. Graham seems to believe there is a serious chance that it is the final scenario that reflects reality. Indeed, Graham told CNN "there's been a pattern of manipulation by this administration."

Graham has good reason to complain. According to the New York Times, he was one of the few members of the Senate who saw the national intelligence estimate that was the basis for Bush's decisions. After reviewing it, Graham requested that the Bush administration declassify the information before the Senate voted on the administration's resolution requesting use of the military in Iraq.

But rather than do so, CIA Director Tenet merely sent Graham a letter discussing the findings. Graham then complained that Tenet's letter only addressed "findings that supported the administration's position on Iraq," and ignored information that raised questions about intelligence. In short, Graham suggested that the Administration, by cherrypicking only evidence to its own liking, had manipulated the information to support its conclusion.

Recent statements by one of the high-level officials privy to the decision making process that lead to the Iraqi war also strongly suggest manipulation, if not misuse of the intelligence agencies. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, during an interview with Sam Tannenhaus of Vanity Fair magazine, said: "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason." More recently, Wolfowitz added what most have believed all along, that the reason we went after Iraq is that "[t]he country swims on a sea of oil."
Worse than Watergate? A potential huge scandal if WMDs are still missing

Krugman is right to suggest a possible comparison to Watergate. In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support, military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a monstrous misdeed.

This administration may be due for a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, which was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush's doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.

To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."

It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly is a serious abuse of presidential power.

Nixon claimed that his misuses of the federal agencies for his political purposes were in the interest of national security. The same kind of thinking might lead a President to manipulate and misuse national security agencies or their intelligence to create a phony reason to lead the nation into a politically desirable war. Let us hope that is not the case.

Well well well... very interesting article.

If the American people weren't so stupid, it'd be looking very bad for Bush. But they are, so they seem to forget very fast that he lied about Iraq's WMD (as opposed to Sadaam Hussein, who actually told the truth about the issue), lied when he said that Iraq was directly linked to 9/11 (all they did were allow some Al Quaida-connected terrorists to live in the country)... those are some serious charges which Bush has no answer for. It is very clear that WMD are not in Iraq... that *SHOCK* the inspections and sanctions (with a threat of force backing them of course) WORKED! Bush lied about that too -- he said that they had so obviously failed. When now we look at the facts and see that they very clearly were completely successful... and that shows how stupid the administration was in ordering this war.

Then there's the whole fiasco about looting and more looting and the fact that we have 150,000 troops in Iraq and probably should have closer to 300,000 for true security (and would have to keep them there for, probably, years) and refuse to allow in the UN or Nato to help us police because we have a huge grudge with them that they actually wanted to look at the "facts" before acting... Remember how by September we'd have 75,000 troops in Iraq? Well... NO. In fact unless we bring in the UN we'll have to have a very large percent of our army tied down in peacekeeping in Iraq for years... and that is NOT a good situation! But when you alienate the rest of the world as successfully as Bush did, its pretty much your only one...

Now lets watch the Iraqis slowly hate us more and more as the occupation drags on and on... and they listen to the rest of the Arab world, which because of Bush hates us more than ever, and get even more angry with us... not a good situation at all...

And yes, weapons inspections did result in the discovery and destruction of chemical and biological weapons and weapons labs over the years until the inspectors were kicked out in '98. That is a indisputable fact. And the fact that they found none when they came back last year shows pretty well that Iraq got rid (or hid do deep that neither them or anyone else has found them since) all their WMD in the years in between... clearly showing that while they ONCE had a program, the inspections and sanctions killed it. As they were supposed to...

So what now, Mr. Bush? How do you get out of THIS one? All of those repeated statements by many adminstration officials over a period of more than 6 months about WMD in Iraq were "misstatements"? The CIA is that incompetent that they couldn't figure out the truth? Neither of those explanations make much sense... no, intentional lying (or at least deception somewhere along the line, for sure!) is the only good explanation I can see.

Oh yeah... he'll rely on the idiocy of the average American. The problem is, it'll probably work... :(

Lets just hope that congress and the courts are smarter... I don't know. We'll see.

[alien space marine]

If the American people weren't so stupid, it'd be looking very bad for Bush. But they are, so they seem to forget very fast that he lied about Iraq's WMD (as opposed to Sadaam Hussein, who actually told the truth about the issue), lied when he said that Iraq was directly linked to 9/11 (all they did were allow some Al Quaida-connected terrorists to live in the country)...

Its sounds like you almost believe Saddam is a saint and that some how his words have actually more credibility then Bush.
Some Kuwaities would shoot you dead for what you just said.
This is the same man who had his own grandchildren executed to punnish their parents.

"We cant find Saddam Hussein that must mean he didnt exist"!

That exactly how it sound in regards to your statement.

Saddam Openly supported Terrorism agiast isreal he gave millions of dollar to suicide bombers and helped finance their activities , Not to mention he used suicide bombers on the U.S army in Iraq , therefore he is in support of that kind of brutality.

They also discoverd mass graves of people who were executed or even buried alive , whos only crime was saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. His sons have comited atrocious crimes such as rape and murder.

Saddam Hussein attacked isreal in the first gulf war and like I said before has financed and given support to Islamic terrorist groups , There was also a document found recently that had Bin Ladins name in a goverment archive in one of Saddams Pallaces. Which had some parts whited out.

The reason Saddam never used his WMD is that if he did he would only prove Bush right for attacking him.

So he had them scatterd and dismantled into hundreds of parts and tranferd all over Iraq and then buried them so even if they were discoverd parts of it nobody would be abled to prove they had that capability. As Saddam only left bits and pieces of it.

If Saddam Hussein didnt have weapons then why did he give the world such a hard time to keep inspectors in his country in 98 and afterward.

[A Black Falcon]

Oh, Sadaam is/was evil. He led a reign of terror and killed lots of his own people. Many were arrested and tortured for no good reason. He actively supported the Palestinians. All of those are true.

However, ALL of the Middle East supports the Palestinians -- including many US "allies". So that's not why we attacked. As for the brutality and murders, he hadn't had a mass killing of his own people since we stopped the Kurdish one after the Gulf War. He has imprisoned people and tortured them, but nothing worse than a whole lot of other nations that we are not invading so that's not why we went in there. Not unless you plan to also invade dozens of other nations too... which we aren't doing. So while it is good for the Iraqi people that we freed them, it doesn't explain or condone the invasion. And neither does supporting Palestinian terrorists because if we invaded for THAT we'd be running almost the whole Arab world.

As for where Sadaam is, he could be dead or alive, I have no clue... though without a nation to control, unlike Bin Laden I'd say that either way he's not much of a threat. And he isn't more credible than Bush... he just told the truth on that issue. And Bush didn't. And it is by far the most important policy issue for both of them...

AND THE FACT THAT SADAAM DESTROYED/DISMANTLED AND DESTROYED HIS BANNED WEAPONS IS EXACTLY MY POINT! He destroyed them in hopes that the weapons inspectors and US officials would see that and decide not to invade because he was complying with what he had been supposed to do 10 years earlier... of course we invaded anyway, but that's just because Bush doesn't care at all about international law.

[Weltall]

I'm not responding in length to all that liberal bullshit, because it can be countered with two statements:

1. If Saddam was destroying his WMD, why he kick out inspectors? Why did he not show the proof of their destruction? If Saddam truly destroyed his weapons, why did he go so far out of his way to draw suspicion on himself? Why, if he destroyed all these weapons, did he refuse to prove it?

Obvious answer: Because he didn't destroy them. He either hid them very well or transported them out of the country.

2. Why is it that the UN inspectors needed more time, more time, more time, yet now that we're searching, the liberal zombies are all moaning because results weren't instantaneous? Iraq's a huge place and we've hardly had the chance to look yet, and obviously they're not going to be hidden in an obvious place!

Sorry, my commie friend, but they're out there, and we'll find them. You guys should just start preparing for 2008, it's the next time the Democrats have a snowball's chance at winning the presidency :)

[alien space marine]

AND THE FACT THAT SADAAM DESTROYED/DISMANTLED AND DESTROYED HIS BANNED WEAPONS IS EXACTLY MY POINT! He destroyed them in hopes that the weapons inspectors and US officials would see that and decide not to invade because he was complying with what he had been supposed to do 10 years earlier... of course we invaded anyway, but that's just because Bush doesn't care at all about international law.

You are incredibly stupid ABF , It is not beyond Saddams resources to film a few baned weapons being dismatled and then have a few others hid in a back room out of sight to confuse the world into believing he got rid of all of them.

If your foolish enough to believe a Evil butcher like Saddam Hussein , it is you who has a serious problem.

I am agaist the existence if weapons of mass destruction in the world , Isreal is at serious fault for arming themselves and your country giving them the means to do it.The orginal Atomic bomb was created to have the means to counter a nazi one, But after which caused choas for decades later.

[A Black Falcon]

1. If Saddam was destroying his WMD, why he kick out inspectors? Why did he not show the proof of their destruction? If Saddam truly destroyed his weapons, why did he go so far out of his way to draw suspicion on himself? Why, if he destroyed all these weapons, did he refuse to prove it?

Obvious answer: Because he didn't destroy them. He either hid them very well or transported them out of the country.

First, he may have either transported some elsewhere or hidden them in parts very well. Its possible, but until I see proof I have no way to really know... but it could be either way. But if they are in parts he probably would just keep the missiles or something and destroy or get rid of the banned chem/bio agents... since that's what we are really looking for.

Next, there are good reasons for his actions. He hates us and the west. He does the least he possibly can to cooperate with us. The absolute minimum. And he knew he could get away with kicking out the inspectors in '98. Just like how a few years later he knew that he would never get away with having chem/bio weapons (he had no nuclear program to speak of), so he got rid of them. Its fairly simple... he did what he could to stay in power and resist us. He just didn't count on a US president ignoring international law.

2. Why is it that the UN inspectors needed more time, more time, more time, yet now that we're searching, the liberal zombies are all moaning because results weren't instantaneous? Iraq's a huge place and we've hardly had the chance to look yet, and obviously they're not going to be hidden in an obvious place!

Even Donald Rumsfeld admitted that they might have destroyed them before the war. :)

And why are we saying things? Very easy. The inspectors took so long because Iraq was doing all they could to keep them from functioning (whether there were weapons to find or not... but until they left in '98 they were effective, considering the situation, in doing what they were there to do and finiding weapons). And now that is all gone and they can go anywhere, with far more inspectors. So there are no excuses.

And its pretty clear that the weapons were mostly destroyed and the evidence that they ever existed cleaned up.

Oh, and Weltall, what about impeaching Bush over the administrations' systematic lying? I hadn't heard of it as a possibility before, but that article (its NOT an opinion piece, its law...) makes a convincing case that it might be possible... :)

[Fittisize]

That'd be cool! I've never seen a president impeached before.

[OB1]

Yes it would definitely be nice to see Bush get forced out of office. I don't think I could stand another four years of his presidency, but it's looking like that's gonna happen.

[EdenMaster]

Originally posted by Fittisize
That'd be cool! I've never seen a president impeached before.

Sure you have, Clinton was impeached for his Monica Lewinsky scandal. He just wasn't forced from office for it. Impeachment doesn't mean losing the presidency, it's just being accused of something worth losing your presidency over. Losing office is a completely different matter.

[Fittisize]

Ah. But I was too young to know anything about impeachment then...

See I thought that impeachment meant being forced to resign from presidency.

[EdenMaster]

Common misconception. I, myself, didn't find that out until the whole thing was just about over.

[alien space marine]

Bill Clinton isnt missing much anyways, He made an idiot out of himself, lieing live in front of everyone and then going back and admiting it. If he just came clean the first time it would have been just a slap on the wrest.

[EdenMaster]

In the grand scheme of things, he did get a slap on the wrist. Have you heard that Bill Clinton is trying to get a change made to the Constitution so he can run for a third term? The scary part is, with the name recognition and as charismatic as he is, if he does it, he might have a shot.

[Fittisize]

Originally posted by alien space marine
Bill Clinton isnt missing much anyways, He made an idiot out of himself, lieing live in front of everyone and then going back and admiting it. If he just came clean the first time it would have been just a slap on the wrest.

Now that's just stupid.

To quote Chris Rock, all Clinton did was lie about getting a blowjob so his wife wouldn't find out.

Albeit it was on a grande scale of things, but that's still what he did. Pretty much.

[A Black Falcon]

Now that's just stupid.

To quote Chris Rock, all Clinton did was lie about getting a blowjob so his wife wouldn't find out.

Albeit it was on a grande scale of things, but that's still what he did. Pretty much.

That's all he did, but the Republican Right who was out to get him (SERIOUSLY out to get him -- or were you too young to remember the innumerable congregessional investigations into the Clinton presidency that occured until the Monica one finally stuck? Well there were a LOT of them. And almost none yeilded anything except a waste of taxpayer dollars.) managed to almost make their dream since 1994 come true...

As for impeachment, yeah it is the hearing -- not the success or failure of it -- that decides if a president is impeached. None have been successfully removed from office... Johnson (the 1860s one, not the 1960s... :) ) managed to stay in office by just a vote or two, Nixon resigned (or he definitely would have been gone), and the Clinton one failed. But both Clinton and Johnson were impeached. They just weren't removed from office.

[Sacred Jellybean]

I love that Chris Rock routine. :D

"And you see all these fat Republican guys going 'I would never do such a thing! This is a travesty!' I'm like no one's trying to blow you! Ain't no 20 year old girls tryin' to blow Orrin Hatch... ain't nobody trying to get Newt Gingrich some. I don't give a fuck, you ain't gonna hear Newt Gingrich go, 'Man, I wish these hoes would just back the fuck up off me... let a playa play!'"

Hilarious stuff. :D

[alien space marine]

Monica Lewinsky is a ho.

The thing is Clinton is forbidden to hold any office in Law or politics.That leaves him without a Job since his degree in law school is useless for a few years.

But his idea of changing the rule for terms is what you guys need. In canada we can already do that , Piere Trudeau was relected again even though he was voted out the previous term becuase of a conservative win, He got back in a year later since Joe Clark Farted pretty bad and made a fool out of himself.

[A Black Falcon]

What he wants to do is to make it so a president can come back for another term (or two, I guess...) after being in for two terms -- not to allow three in a row, but to come back after 4 or more years off. And I'd say that its a good idea... not for Clinton, but for the future. Its kind of strange to say that after 2 terms you can never become president again...

[alien space marine]

Imagine Bill Clinton brought back!

I did not have sexual relations with that country , France.

[Great Rumbler]

I'm going to invent a time machine so I can back in time and punch 16-year-old Great Rumbler in the face.

[A Black Falcon]

So what, you don't want to invade Iran, Syria, and Ukraine?

[Dark Jaguar]

I think we can all admit we are better than our past selves, but heck we wouldn't be able to be better without them.

Some say live "in the now", some say "return to the past", some say "live for the future". I prefer the Scrooge strategy.

[Great Rumbler]

So what, you don't want to invade Iran, Syria, and Ukraine?

I'll break it down for you:

1. Fox News is awful
2. Bush was awful
3. Iraq War was awful

That about covers it.

[Weltall]

I was all set to argue
until I did see
it was 11 years old
and the author was me

[etoven]

I was all set to argue
until I did see
it was 11 years old
and the author was me

haha.. Nice.. :)

[A Black Falcon]

Looking at the early pages of the thread, the one thing I get wrong is the assumption that Sadaam had some kind of banned weapons; as we know, he didn't, though he probably thought he did (being lied to by his scientists, etc.). But other than that, I agree with myself. :)

Things are definitely more complex now, though... the Syria and Ukraine issues are complicated and challenging ones, and aren't quite as clearcut (what we did then was clearly wrong) as Iraq was in '03, I think. On Syria I can't help but think that we should have done more to help the rebels, but now it's probably too late -- Assad is winning the war, and it's probably too late to do anything about it. Of course, it didn't help at all that a lot of rebels were (and are) religious extremists, so there just weren't enough obviously friendly rebels in Syria to work with... so we were cautious, while Russia went all-in supporting Assad, and here we now are with a bad situation on our hands. After saying "Assad must go"... well, he's still here, and doesn't look likely to go anywhere soon.

And in Ukraine, seriously, we can't allow Russia to just steal part (or maybe half, if they go in and really tear apart Ukraine!) of Ukraine. Yeah, I'm not too happy with Russia these days for sure... taking the Crimea was blatantly illegal, and his actions in pushing the pro-Russian sepratists in the East are pretty bad as well. The sanctions we've put in place in response are a good start, and may be working, though, but more of them would be good. Russia CAN be affected by sanctions now, much more so than in Soviet days, which is an issue for Putin...

[Dark Jaguar]

In the past, the US gave aid to countries in the form of building schools, hospitals and infrastructure. Those things directly improved the quality of life of the people IN those countries. Nowadays we've just been giving their leadership money, which they spend, generally, on military to go against us.

It would be better if we stopped the financial aid in favor of REAL "nation building" like we used to do. Nations where the populace love us because of things we're directly giving them tend to have less reason to attack us. In those events, we don't need to worry as much about direct military intervention later on.

[A Black Falcon]

I absolutely agree that aid like that is important and we should do more of that. We do do some infrastructure aid, but of course there could be more. But, sometimes just that is not enough... and look at Afghanistan, we've tried some infrastructure there, and a lot of people still hate us. Just that doesn't always help, though of course that that aid came along with a military occupation certainly hurt its effectiveness. But still... aid is great, and America under-rates its effect and gives far too little of it, but sometimes you need to do more. And in cases like Ukraine or Syria, you're clearly in that kind of situation; our issues with Russia aren't the kind of thing that could be solved with aid, I think. For now at least, they'll most likely just ... continue to be an issue, in some form, as they have ever since the end of WWII.

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm not talking about a developed country like Russia, but more places in the middle east. There's been enough studies on just how effective direct building aid can be, and it's rather astonishing. More to the point, as I said, we USED to do that as primary aid. A major effort, without military occupation, would provide some surprising dividends.

Even if they didn't, even in the absence of compelling evidence to suggest it would help us, it would STILL be the right thing to do.