3rd May 2003, 10:25 PM
Quote:Okay, why on earth would Bush want to finish Daddy's war when it was Bush Sr.'s own decision NOT to finish Saddam! Tell me how you divine that? Why would Bush want to fight this war to finish what his father started when his own father CHOSE NOT TO FINISH IT WHEN HE VERY WELL COULD HAVE?
Bush Sr. could have, sure. But he listened to the sane voices in his administration which said "the international community does not support any action beyond what we have done" and "doing any more would make us look very bad in the eyes of the world" and didn't go to Baghdad. Bush Jr., on the other hand, has as his main advisors the people on the opposite side -- the ones telling Bush Sr. to go kill Sadaam. They are his closest advisiors. So he did what his father wisely didn't and went in there.
And look what we got! Exactly what the people who told Sr. not to knew would happen 12 years ago -- an angry world who hates us in our unilateral use of force.
You know why I blame oil and his father's legacy? Because I can't think of a better reason that makes a shred of sense. None.
Terrorism? We know he supported Palestinian groups, sure, but so do a LOT of Middle Eastern nations we are friends with. Nothing special there. And as the administration admitted, the Al Quida ties are more wishful thinking than fact... sure there are a few, very minor things they've found, but nothing that is any more than the rest of the middle east is doing... not nearly as bad as Pakistan for instance... or Syria, or Saudi Arabia... but 9/11 gave him a VERY convenient excuse on which to activate this plan he thought he wouldn't be able to do.
... anything else? I can't think of any.
Quote:So, to summarize, it wasn't oil, and I dare someone to prove otherwise. Of course, I know challenging ABF to prove his words is a futile effort. But I gotta try.
ANWR has a VERY small oil reserve. Iraq has the second largest after Saudi Arabia. I'd say that'd give it priority. Plus, Bush saw his chance to finally take out Sadaam (a task he'd wanted to do but doubted he'd be able to from day one) after 9/11... after all Sadaam MUST be supporting Bin Laden! Of course we still have no evidence of direct support of Al Quaida from the Iraqi governmentt... but, I must admit, Bush always carefully didn't say "Sadaam Supports Bin Laden". Because he knew he didn't have any proof for it.
Quote:Well, the UN had to end it now because the UN had twelve years to find this shit and failed miserably. We haven't even had twelve weeks. Be fair.
Okay. We can start by noting that those 12 years of inspections and sanctions did, over time, actually work at their task and force Sadaam to either disarm or bury his weapons so well that neither he or anyone else could use them for a long time.
And that the administration ignored that fact and attacked on a fallacious basis. The inspections they are carrying out are proving that... if they do find anything it'd be very well buried and not anywhere that Sadaam could have ever used while the inspections and sanctions were going on.
I'd call that successful until forced to stop.