Tony asked me this the other day. A lot of conservative/republicans ask this question, in hopes that supporters across the isle will spew rhetoric from the "Democratic Party Propaganda Machine". Well, aside from opinion based issues, such as his response to Katrina, putting the wrong guys in office, and using bad intelligence (that he was told was bad) as a way to declare war on Iraq, I'll give you 3 reasons:
1. The Bush Tax Cuts, which is generally considered to have been good for the economy, BUT also...
2. Had to fund the war in Afghanistan (and rightly so), BUT also...
3. Declared war on Iraq, for which the White House greatly underestimated the cost
3a. Delayed suplemental troops
3b. And stretched the millitary far too thinly
The problem is that you can't reduce taxes, and then also go on a spending spree. Now, I'll ask a Republican (Tony) to debate those points.
I ask this question in general terms, without supporting documentation, because when our elephant friends ASK the question, they ask it generally.
Monday, August 4, 2008
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3 comments:
I can't remember the last time the topic of the motives for Iraq came up and someone bothered to go back any further than 2003.
Now, I’m extremely interested in the truth, so any help others can provide will be greatly appreciated. I’m also persuaded we will continue our national deterioration until many others become much more concerned with pursuing truth. Truth is based on appropriately prioritizing the appropriate facts. And, it seems pretty clear this is hardly ever accomplished by any of our media.
Everybody makes mistakes, and some even worse. We generally balance the good with the bad in assessing each other.
If memory serves, Mr Hussein was on an internationally short leash from his 1990 murderous escapade in Kuwait. On that short leash he chose (especially while President Clinton was in office) for more than a decade to repeatedly frustrate and hinder international WMD/nuclear inspectors, and launch missiles at coalition aircraft in the no-fly zone. Can anyone help me with the details of his plan to assassinate Bush Sr? Again, help me verify the facts, but I’m pretty sure he was supporting Palestinian murder bombers, and hosting at least one high profile terrorist (who died in the last few years). I guess I’m also forgetting his brutality/gassing his own people. Did his sons truly have impunity for their whimsically frequent mutilation and rape? These are just the points that come to mind without any digging.
Going back even a little further, I’ll cut pieces from something I read that seems appropriate:
When the radicals are in charge, Islam attacks Western civilization. Islam first attacked Western civilization in the 7th century, and later in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1683, the Moslems (Turks from the Ottoman Empire) were literally at the gates of Vienna. It was in Vienna that the climactic battle between Islam and Western civilization took place. The West won and went forward. Islam lost and went backward.
We live in a world where a small number of people can kill a large number of people very quickly. You can't stop every attack. That means our tolerance for political horseplay has dropped to zero. No longer can we play games with terrorists or weapons of mass destruction.
People can argue about whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong. However, the underlying strategy behind the war is to use our military to remove the radicals from power and give the moderates a chance. Our hope is that, over time, the moderates will find a way to bring Islam forward into the 21st century. That's what our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is all about.
If we can minimize the radicals and give the moderates a chance to hold power; they might find a way to reconcile Islam with the modern world. So when looking at Afghanistan or Iraq, it's important to look for any signs that they are modernizing. For example: Not using madrassahs to teach hate is good. Women being brought into the work force and colleges in Afghanistan is good. The Iraqis stumbling toward a constitution and democracy is good.
While we’re at it, you didn’t mention it, but others have: Oil as a motive? Yes, realizing the wealth oil made available to fund greater and greater mayhem. Saddam had decades to demonstrate his stewardship. Could he or even his direction have survived a fair election? Why is democracy vs dictatorship such a hard choice?
Now, considering all the above, why the administration has allowed the lack of WMD to become a sole comdemnation eludes me.
If we differ, isn’t it over knowing when acquiescing for “peace for our time” is appropriate. Doesn’t it boil down to knowing the leader/government you are dealing with and balancing their good with their bad.
I completely agree with the delayed supplemental troops, and will try to respond soon with government finances feedback.
Thanks for the comment. I agree 100%. I try to stick to main generalities (word??)in my postings to keep it simple and address the "main" democratic issues. I appreciate you adding your comment, that's what this blog is about.
Eric, regarding your 8/28/08 10:01 reply on the “Honest Unbiased Observation – Eric” post: You originally commented here about the “opinion based issue” of President Bush “using bad intelligence (that he was told was bad) as a way to declare war on Iraq”. In my reply I indicated there were other credible reasons reasonably related to National Security. But you then wrote in the above post “I'm now deeply absorbing everything I can in an effort to figure out what particular, credible threat, to our National Security, did Iraq pose." which raised my "curiousity..." reply.
I don't consider my post a "convincing argument for the Iraq war", so its very appropriate that you "somehow missed it". I do consider my post more than sufficient to prompt thorough self-reflection for a "this was the sole argument, used as a justification for the war" position. I appreciate your being "still early in my study, and I could be wrong...".
In a similar fashion, your "sole argument" comment pushed me to finally start to look into documenting the additional arguments. I've been meaning to do this for years, and appreciate this blog's prodding. Here's what I have so far:
* Here's a summary list of the 1990's U.N. resolutions Hussein violated. Pretty amazing.
* Here's the U.S. Congress 10/2/02 "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq". While WMD takes a much more prominent role than I would have predicted, there are many other arguments for authorizing force against Hussein listed in this document. Granted, not enough for the then 41 year old Illinois State Senator Obama.
* Here's an interesting UN Press Article summarizing UN Resolution 1441.
* Here's the 11/08/2002 "UN Resolution 1441" unanimously approved by the Security Council, including Russia, China, France, and Syria.
While the security council, after 12 years of Hussein non-compliance, couldn't be persuaded to be more forceful in 1441 than to again state the "Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations", they did include that this was "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" and demanded achievable compliances similar to "not later than 30 days from the date of this resolution". At least this resolution was stern enough that Hussein immediately allowed the inspectors to return for the first time since being expelled 4 years earlier. Yet during the beginning months of 2003, well after the compliance timelines spelled out in 1441, the inspectors repeatedly reported that Hussein was still failing to make even simple efforts at compliance. As the push for followup started, France then made it clear, that it would veto any resolution to implement "serious consequences" stronger than those that Hussein had already repeatedly ignored. So no further effort was wasted pursuing a UN resolution to that effect. A coalition issued Hussein a cease and desist warning with a deadline, that he ignored.
Convicts lose some of their rights, and are expected to convincingly demonstrate they are in compliance with the demands of authority. Similarly the post Kuwait world demanded confidence that Hussein did not possess and was not pursuing WMD. Like he did for the prior 12 years, against Kuwait, and even his own people, he preferred to test the world's strength of will, risking the outcome. If he had complied to the world's expectations, no U.S. President could ever have attacked. How is he then not much more responsible for the result than anyone else?
Could you provide any statistics on the collection of phrases you referenced? Who said them, when and how often? What else were they saying at that moment?
So you say "I certainly do not agree with" my post. Which of the stated facts do you dismiss to warrant disagreement?
Would you agree that no man can
ever KNOW another man's motives? Even if he's our very best friend, we are left to at best infer his motives based on all his known actions. Besides aren't President Bush's motives for the war completely irrelevant as compared to our nation's collective intent? Isn't it fair to say that as a nation we intend good-will towards all those who are like-minded? We will not allow our President to sway too far/often from our intent. We have more than 100k of our very best and $10B a month accomplishing much more good for Iraq than our media or the terrorists would have us know.
Over the last 60 years of their independence, the international community has done embarrasingly little to help the freed colonies transition to enabling their own peacable citizens and minimizing their radicals. Additionally, the world's and President Clinton's "can't we just all get along" approach to the middle east and tyrants hasn't work out all that well. On the other hand, President Bush's simply being reasonably firm with murderer's like Arafat, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Hussein is successfully pulling Libya and N. Korea back from their destructive temptations. Individuals and nations, including the U.S., need to know there are appropriately painful consequences to violations of the universal, innately acceptable "do to others what you would have them do to you".
Regarding your comments about the study of history: aren't the facts of history a mandatory foundation for validation of our opinions and positions? Of course, discovery of the facts should precede the forming of strongly held positions. There are so many confused and deceivers, and even more lies, the difficulty is in KNOWING the facts. While, as a group of humans, my government makes regrettable mistakes, I still vastly prefer our sense of honor, justice and truth over the likes of Hussein and his cohorts. Hopefully, you do as well?
I couldn't agree with you more when you said : "We can't, or shouldn't try to use history to rewrite the history of how we ended up in the second Iraq war." Except, as pertains to WMD as the sole argument for the Iraq war, it appears for now we still disagree as to who actually committed this offense? Given the facts I'm aware of, neither I, nor our government attempted to rewrite history. On this topic, our media is by far the most egregious in not only re-writing history, but in its feigned pursuit of honor, justice and truth. Those that are leading this deception should be despised for the way they've intentionally misled and manipulated much of our country for their own purposes. That they can't or won't present enough of the facts should lead us to severely question their motives and goals.
This is only one example of our media's extreme bias. We should all be much more careful differentiating between our media's reporting of facts, and the conclusions they draw. They often ignore too much of the prior, and persuasively spread the latter throughout the non-editorial pages. When we find ourselves in frenzied concensus with anyone's shallowly based and oft repeated conclusions, its time to step back, and dig deeper, for the truth built on a foundation of all the facts.
That's the goal. Bring on the help...
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