Iraq- The Wrong War

[buster]

This is from www.cato.org. A good website btw.

quote:

---

Executive Summary

President Bush asserts that U.S. military action against Iraq was justified because Saddam Hussein was in material breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441. But even if Iraq was in violation of a UN resolution, the U.S. military does not exist to enforce UN mandates. It exists to defend the United States: its territorial integrity and national sovereignty, the population, and the liberties that underlie the American way of life. So whether Iraq was in violation of Resolution 1441 is irrelevant. The real question is whether Iraq represented a direct and imminent threat to the United States that could not otherwise be deterred. If that was the case, then preemptive self-defense, like Israel's military action against Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq in the 1967 Six Day War, would have been warranted. And if Iraq was not a threat, especially in terms of aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, then the United States fought a needless war against a phantom menace.

In the final analysis, the war against Iraq was the wrong war. Not because the United States used preemptive military force—preemptive self-defense would have been justified in the face of a truly imminent threat. Not because the United States acted without the consent of the United Nations—no country should surrender its defense to a vote of other nations. And not because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD)—none has been discovered and, even if they existed, they were not a threat.

The war against Iraq was the wrong war because the enemy at the gates was, and continues to be, Al Qaeda. Not only was Iraq not a direct military threat to the United States (even if it possessed WMD, which was a fair assumption), but there is no good evidence to support the claim that Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaeda and would have given the group WMD to be used against the United States. In fact, all the evidence suggests the contrary. Hussein was a secular Muslim ruler, and bin Laden is a radical Muslim fundamentalist—their ideological views are hardly compatible.

Ironically, President Bush provided his own indictment of the Iraq war when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly in September 2003: "No government should ignore the threat of terror, because to look the other way gives terrorists the chance to regroup and recruit and prepare." But that is exactly what the United States did by going to war against Iraq. To make matters even worse, the American taxpayer is stuck with the bill for the war and postwar reconstruction.

---

 

[JohnBrowning]

I say it is the right war. Last I checked their have not been any more airliners crashing into buildings! Last I check most terrorist sponsors have cut short a lot of their prior support. Last I checked a lot of places are now policeing their own back yard out of fear that we will do it for them if they fail! Last I checked we now have one two less tyrants incontrol of countrys.


If for no other reason then the Hamanitairian benifit it was the right thing to do! Now I am not so nieve to belive that this is why we have done what we have done. It is a great benifit though to the all that were suffering rape, torture, kidnapping and mass exucutions on a daily bases. I am sure women in Iraq andf Afhganastan(sp) are more then happy to be less repressed now!

 

[sub_zero]

Exactly how has the war in Iraq become a war on terrorism? I'd love to hear peoples theories.

When you go to explain yourself though think real hard about what has been said and the context of what's been said, make sure it's factual and not some idiot on FOX drawing bogus conclusions. This sepeculation is designed to change your perception of the facts, the older the facts are the more time they've had to "work" on you.

There is a war going on against terrorism and it's a good war your not hearing about it, it's being waged by the Special Forces Command and is covert.

Don't confuse the Iraq war with the war on terrorism it sounds ignorant.

[ March 28, 2004, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: sub_zero ]

 

[Palut]

Saddam funded terrorists who attacked Israel. Removing him hurt those terrorists. We've all heard reports of Al-Qaeda fighters joining the fight in Iraq...this means that Iraq IS a war on terror. We now have those Al-Qaeda fighters going at it with our well equipped military, instead of planning attacks on our shores. Even if we've done nothing other than divert Al-Qaeda's attention, then we've still got them bashing themselves to pieces on our army, instead of slaughtering our general populace. Seems worth the monetary expense to me...

 

[Shannow]

Buster,
no need to reiterate my view of the war on Iraq as being illegal, and the wrong thing to do.

You can only attack a nation if they have first attacked you, or are in the process of doing it. In spite of what we were told previously, this is simply not the case.

Then roll out Resolution 1441 which requires the security council to convene immediately should a breach take place, NOT mounting a unilateral attack.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Topics started by buster:

1. "Iraq-the wrong war"

2. "If this is true- Bush is in Trouble"

3. "Iraq- civil war?"

4. "U.S. Army to stay in Iraq until 2006"


Potential previous topics started by buster:


1. "Hitler- what's he done that so bad?"

2. "Japan's the enemy, not Germany"

3. "U.S. army to stay in Europe until 1951"

4. "The terrorist training camps Afganistan present no threat"

 

[buster]

GM, this board is 99% conservative. I think it's important to discuss the other side of the coin instead of trying to justifying everything your boy Bush is doing. BTW, I will be voting for Bush based on Kerry's positions overall. However, the jury is still out on his pre-emptive war and the Iraq war in general. Live up to the fact that WMD's ain't there bud and the threat was totally over hyped. Problem is GM, no one is being objecive about this and they are simply trying to justify everything in their own little world.

GROUCHO MARX Posts:

"Whatever the US and W does is right and justified at all times".

"Sadam had something to do with 9-11"

"Iraq was threatened me personally"

"This war will decrease the number of terrorists worldwide"

[ March 28, 2004, 05:59 PM: Message edited by: buster ]

 

[Pablo]

I, for one, never said, thought or implied that Iraq had a thing to do with the al que-da murder of US and other citizens in NY, Wa DC, Penn, on 9-11-01.

However, after that date, we publicly and privately announced all perceived threats, terrorists or otherwise are fair game. Unfortunately for Saddam, he was on "the list" for awhile. I was hoping we could take him and his thugs out more surgically. Now that we are "in country", we need to finish the paperwork. Sure is messy paperwork, but there are good spots.

It isn't a perfect world, and look how we even haggle about hindsight. And, like you, I am so disgusted by Kerry and his ilk I'll end up voting for a brain case such as Bush. Bushes bone-head move was the whole trying talk the UN into it, then going on and on and hyping WMD, etc. Iraq was a threat, not necessarily immediate, and we were justified in taking the leadership out.

[ March 28, 2004, 06:45 PM: Message edited by: Pablo ]

 

[DonCT]

Isn't it funny how the Left thinks Iraq was wrong but Waco was okay?

Here's a quick rule of thumb. If the U.S. invades a country to stop the oppression of white people, i.e. Yugoslavia, the left won't protest. If non-whites are being dumped in mass graves i.e. Iraq, Rwanda, the Left will protest.

I just wish the left and their spinmeisters in the media would simply be honest and say they support appeasement.

Note to the left...terrorists want to kill ALL Americans, you included. It doesn't matter to them that you're on their side.

 

[Al]

Well..Sadam is gone-the oil wells are intact and that suits me to a tee.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Buster, I can assume then that you support mass murder. That the humans in Iraq were disposable?

I don't post right or left, buster. You want it both ways, Bush is wrong, but it's good that Saddam is out. It doesn't work that way. You can't please everyone, hard as you may try.

You also must consider the consequences of non action. See WTC bombing of 1993 and subsequent 9-11-2001.

What's laughable is that you think you're middle of the raod when your posts are totally anti-Bush. Just admit it like TC, or Needtoknow or tweeker43. that's all.

 

[Eric]

The Cato institute is making me feel embarressed to be a registered Libertarian. The idea that the more secular anti American Moslems can not make common cause with the more religious anti American Moslems sort of ignores the past. During WW2, the US aided the Soviet Union massively with weapons and raw material. We then fought the Cold War, which we nearly lost, til the Sovs collapsed.

Here's an article with some lists of ties between Iraq and al Q.

RICHARD CLARKE'S IRAQ CONFUSION
By DEROY MURDOCK - NY Post

March 27, 2004 -- BUSH bashers have deployed former counter- terrorist Richard Clarke as a weapon of mass denunciation. They are using him and his new book, "Against All Enemies," to condemn the Bush administration for allegedly obsessing over Iraq rather than al Qaeda.
Clarke made war critics swoon by chanting one of their cherished mantras: "There is absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda ever," he declared on CBS' "60 Minutes." So, the theory goes, President Bush squandered American lives hunting Saddam Hussein rather than Osama bin Laden.

This view totally overlooks extensive connections between Baghdad and bin Laden. Just ask Richard Clarke.

* On Wednesday, he told the 9/11 Commission about Abdul Rahman Yasin, the al Qaeda operative who federal prosecutors indicted for bombing the World Trade Center in 1993, killing six, and injuring 1,042.

"He was an Iraqi," Clarke observed. "Therefore, when the explosion took place, and he fled the United States, he went back to Iraq." While he believes Baghdad didn't orchestrate that attack, he concedes that Hussein embraced this assassin: "The Iraqi government," he said, "didn't cooperate in turning him over and gave him sanctuary."

* In a Jan. 23, 1999, Washington Post article, Clarke defended the Clinton administration's 1998 cruise-missile strike on Sudan's El Shifa pharmaceutical plant. That mission avenged al Qaeda's demolition of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that Aug. 7. The Post quoted Clarke as "sure" that Iraqi experts there produced a VX nerve gas component. The Post reported that Clarke "said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to El Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National Islamic Front in Sudan."

* Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorist Abu Abbas made news March 9 by dying in U.S. military custody in Iraq. Green Berets captured him last April in Baghdad, where he had relaxed since 2000. After masterminding the 1985 Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking, in which U.S. retiree Leon Klinghoffer was murdered, Abbas slipped Italian custody.

How? "Abu Abbas was the holder of an Iraqi diplomatic passport," Italy's then-premiere Bettino Craxi announced then. So, Rome let him split for Yugoslavia.

* Speaking of diplomacy, the Philippines booted an official at Iraq's Manila embassy, Hisham al Hussein, in February 2003 after discovering that the mobile phone that reached his number on Oct. 3, 2002, six days later rang another cell phone strapped to a bomb at the San Roque Elementary School in Zamboanga in the Philippines.

While that device failed, another exploded one day earlier in Zamboanga, wounding 23 and killing three, including U.S. soldier Mark Wayne Jackson. That mobile phone also registered calls to Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Ali, leaders of Abu Sayyaf, al Qaeda's Philippine branch.

* Washington Times correspondents Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough reported March 19 on a 20-page, Arabic-language document from the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS). Stamped "top secret," it lists IIS "collaborators," among them Osama bin Laden. It says he is a "Saudi businessman and is in charge of the Saudi opposition in Afghanistan . . . And he is in good relationship with our section in Syria." A U.S. official found this 1993 record (signed "Jabar")authentic.

* "Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad," CIA Director George Tenet wrote the Senate Intelligence Committee on Oct. 7, 2002. "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al Qaeda, suggest that Baghdad's links with terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action."

Critics of Operation Iraqi Freedom ignore these and many more ties among Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda and other Islamofascists. Why? Acknowledging these contacts would concede a major casus belli behind Coalition efforts. The fact that Mohamed Atta did not charge his plane ticket to Hussein's Platinum Visa card does not render the Butcher of Baghdad a virgin among militant Muslims. In fact, Saddam Hussein loyally supported global terrorists, including al Qaeda.

If Clarke and others who oppose Bush's Iraq policy still don't see this, they're either blind or in a state of deep denial.

NEW YORK POST

 

[nicrfe1370]

quote:

---

Originally posted by GROUCHO MARX:
Buster, I can assume then that you support mass murder. That the humans in Iraq were disposable?

---

Let me get this straight; the US is responsible for investigating countries around the world and deciding who is right and wrong, and if wrong, we can almost singlehandedly wage an unprovoked, preemptive war against a country or ruler we deem "evil"?
If that is what one suggests by saying that we were justified in going to war with Iraq because Saddam killed perhaps millions of people ( a dispicable act, I can not defend it) then why only Iraq? When will we wage war against North Korea, we know over 5 million have died there under Kim Jong Il's rule from starvation, what about the violations of human rights in Saudi Arabia any of us would consider wrong, what about the millions of people in Africa who die from disease and civil war each year, what about Israel's violations of UN charters which outnumber any Iraq ever violated, **** , what about the millions of people that die each year in the United States that could be saved with broad but simple acts of legislation?
This has not been a rhetorical response to GM, I really want to know.

 

[buster]

quote:

---

Buster, I can assume then that you support mass murder. That the humans in Iraq were disposable?

---

GM, your too funny. Your sounding a lot like Sean Hannity now.

I'm a fiscal conservative, social liberal. That is how I define my political beliefs. I'm usually 99% on board with Republican foreign policy decisions.

I am however, concerned about the US. GM, in your world, we better take out N.Korea, Africa, Iran and god knows how many other countries that have people suffering. Maybe you should send your kids to all these places or you yourself go and fight these wars. Did you ever think of it that way? It's not our duty to free every nation from opression. As much as I like the idea, it's unrealistic. Lets take care of our own and take out threats when they are a real danger. As I said many times, I am all for defense spending and having a superior military but I want to go to war when it's necessary. I'm just not convinced this was necessary NOW. I also admitt it's too early to judge this decision, however, I think we need to be more objective about it.

[ March 28, 2004, 08:09 PM: Message edited by: buster ]

 

[sub_zero]

I just have to laugh.

All you Right wingers are like a rape victim too embarrassed to admit it wasn't there fault. Look your man in office has deceived everyone including you. I know it's tough to realize in your heart when you've been had, pride is a "deadly sin" remember.

The war on terror is covert you do not hear about it, Iraq is a totally different situation. The FACTS bear this out!

[ March 28, 2004, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: sub_zero ]

 

[Last_Z]

quote:

---

Originally posted by GROUCHO MARX:
Topics started by buster:

1. "Iraq-the wrong war"

2. "If this is true- Bush is in Trouble"

3. "Iraq- civil war?"

4. "U.S. Army to stay in Iraq until 2006"


Potential previous topics started by buster:


1. "Hitler- what's he done that so bad?"

2. "Japan's the enemy, not Germany"

3. "U.S. army to stay in Europe until 1951"

4. "The terrorist training camps Afganistan present no threat"

---

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahah!

buster, I think GM's got your number!

 

[Gary Allan]

quote:

---

Exactly how has the war in Iraq become a war on terrorism? I'd love to hear peoples theories.

---

It doesn't ...not directly. This was a con job. I don't care what right wing loyalty you have ..this was a con ..plain and simple. No one would support over 87 billion in spending to "liberate the oppressed people of Iraq" without our "need for blood and victory" after 911. Don't even try and make anyone believe that you would. I, btw, assumed that Sadam DID have WMD ..and I still think that it's a con.

However........

This was a demonstation of our total and undeniable capability to crush any opposition from any nation who we chose to "at will". This sent a message to any of those who support these terrorists cells that they don't necessarily have to be caught red handed or that the "smoking gun" need be in their hands for the FULL WEIGHT of the American WAR MACHINE to be levied against them. We crushed Sadam in about 3 weeks. No other force in the region would stand up much longer and THIS president was more than willing to spend whatever was necessary to achieve his goals.

GW stated "If you're not with us ..you're against us" ...and proved just what that meant if those who protect and foster these extremist elements don't behave.

..and NOW we have a substantial FULLY MOBILE force in the region that is only a few days away of doing the exact same thing to anyone else we choose to.

This was walking into a hostile bar and just picking a fight with the nastiest bada$$ in the joint .....and watching all the others sphincters snap shut.

So ..was it "right"? Noble? No ..I don't think so.

..but effective?

Once you erase any delusional myths of our "nobility and selflessness" it all makes sense. We've been into the global domination business since the end of WWII and for most of that we've been friendly and beneficial to many ..but make no foolish assumptions about our intentions in anything we do.

 

[SSlube]

JUST THE FACTS


FDR led us into World War II Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From

1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.


Truman finished that war and started one in Korea. North Korea never

attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333

per year.


John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never

attacked us.


Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives

were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.


Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent Bosnia never

attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three

times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple

occasions.


In the two years since terrorists attacked us, President Bush has

liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put

nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran and North Korea without

firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own

people.


We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year. Bush did all this abroad

while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.


Worst president in history? Come on!


WHAT DO YOU THINK..........?????????

 

[Pablo]

SS, knock off the facts.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

buster, my point was, to a topic you started not one you just posted on (there is a big difference!), that a "wrong war" is one where a by product is the overthrow of a madman and his two more evil sons is accomplished?

Where a supporter of Palestinian terrorists is removed. That's funny! I'm funny. I've looked down the hole at the WTC buster, have you? I've seen it on numerous visits.

We are not responsible to rid the world of tyrants (although the U.N. would like to give us the job), but we made a commitment to rid the world of terrorists, not just until we didn't like the President any longer. That's what commitment means.

We may no longer be commited come November, we shall see.

As far as this goes buster, I don't start anti-lib topics as you start anti-Bush topics. If I did, then I would be wearing Hannity's shoes.