3rd May 2003, 10:56 PM
Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
[B]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.
Bush Sr. SHOULD have finished off Saddam! It would have saved so much trouble in the long run! Tell me, if Senior thought it was wise not to continue, what stake could Junior have that was so great and so pressing that he plots for ten years to accede to the presidency just on the off-chance he could finish the task his father decided NOT to finish? Do you realize just how retarded your scenario sounds?
And yes, look what we have now! We have a world who isn't happy with us. And exactly what consequence is it having on us? Now that so many people around the world are mad at us, what sort of dire consequences have resulted? NOTHING. Terrorism? Nothing yet. And Al-Qaeda started with the WTC attack just two years after Bush Sr. decided NOT to destroy Saddam. They already hated us. So fucking what? They gonna hate us more now? Whoopdy doo.
Really, I know you like to paint us in as bad a light as possible, but there are really no huge repercussions that have resulted or will result from this war that will harm us. The nations that got mad at us have mostly calmed down, because they remember that they need the United States more than the United States needs them. As long as that fact remains, there's really nothing anyone can do about what policies we enact. That's a fringe benefit of being the world's only superpower.
Quote: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.
That doesn't surprise me in the least.
Quote: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.
There was most definitely official terrorist support coming from Iraq, but that wasn't the reason we went to war with them, their ties to terror had little to do with it. It's pretty obvious that while official terrorist support is sketchy, there was definitely a lot of passive terrorist support going on, that happens all over the Middle East. But as I said, their terror ties were not the reason we fought them just now.
Quote: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.
If ANWR has very little oil, why fight so hard to deny drilling? There are many places in America that can yield small amounts of oil, why would this one be a special case? As I said, that aside, there's no way waging a 70 billion dollar war (to say nothing of the billions and billions more for reconstruction) could possibly lead to profit from oil sales, not without years and years of uninterrupted and completely exclusive sales to America, and that will certainly not happen. If oil money was so desperately sought, why not just raise domestic prices? Our society depends on the automobile so heavily that there's no way we could do anything about that except pay more.
Quote: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.
Oh, give me a damn break. Saddam hid his weapons so well that it would take too long for him to find them himself and use them? Do you think before you type?
Those twelve years gave him plenty of time to make secret all his weapons. If he was disarming as you claim, why, oh why, did he kick inspectors out for four years? Why kick them out if you have nothing to hide from them?
I personally think the moment the UN inspectors were ejected was the moment we should have gone to war with Iraq. Would have made a perfect pretext.
YOU CANNOT HIDE FOREVER
WE STAND AT THE DOOR
WE STAND AT THE DOOR