Did Bush / Blair invent the cause for war?

[MikeK]

Is it that simple, Mike? Sometimes there is no good choice in an election. The electorate may be at fault, but individuals can usually do little. Otherwise you are responsible for every silly law from your state and the federal government.

Ian, don't you have lobbys over there? Everybody hates them but they are still represented by a lobbyist IRT their jobs, healthcare, roads, etc. For example we have the NRA here that works for gun rights, and we have the anti-handgun lobby that's fights for the opposite. Each can make their case to as many people as possible based on how much in donations and support they get from individuals.

[Bill Glasheen]

Other than the wordsmithing that makes this appear as biased as it is...

2. Bush had decided to 'justify' the war 'by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.'

"3. Already, 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'

...I don't see what's new here, Ian. This whole thing was debated for years. Clinton had already decided that regime change was the right way to go, although he was too busy handling Monicagate to deal either with Saddam or with the al qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Even way, way back in the George HW Bush administration with Desert Storm, it was hoped that the defeat of Saddam and ousting of him from Kuwait would result in regime change from within w/o interference from Iran. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way. Saddam just began executing his enemies in the north and south en masse.

Please read what I quoted, Ian. Take out the author's quotes and pejorative-laden words. Then what do you have left?

If you decide to do something, you make a case to do it. Period. End of story.

And we already know by now that it was pointless going the U.N. route. There are clear records now of Saddam bribing the French, the Germans, and the Russians with oil credits. We weren't going to get anywhere with a corrupt U.N. Even Coffi Annan's son was on the take. Had we not invaded Iraq and gotten the records, we never would have known why we were being so badly jerked around.

Again... Reasonable people will disagree on whether or not to invade. But I don't see any of this as new, or changing minds. Obviously the popular press felt the same way. It's yesterday's news.

And besides, Michael Jackson's verdict is about to come up. What's more important than that?

I was blessed with very good history courses at Phillips Exeter, Ian. We read lots of primary source information. God's truth on any subject is never as simple as the sanitized version you get in the textbooks and the popular press. The truth is usually way more interesting.

And history seems to repeat itself.

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

This is from The Washington Post, and published before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Italics emphasis in article is preserved as in the original.

A Course Set by Congress

By Colbert I. King
Saturday, March 8, 2003; Page A23

Initially, this column was going to be a screed about the Bush administration's confusing message on Iraq. How, the piece would start, does President George W. Bush expect to mobilize the country -- let alone the world -- behind him if he keeps coming up with new reasons for invading Iraq? First there's "regime change." Then the switch to disarmament. Now the goal is a democratic Iraq and more freedom-loving societies in the Middle East. What about Congress? the column would ask. Why is it hugging the sidelines as the administration sets out to rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of terror, and to remake the political map of the Persian Gulf?

That, however, is not what today's offering is about. And for good reason. It would have missed the mark.

Believe it or not, the American call for "regime change" in Iraq didn't start with George W. Bush. For that, we must return to the days of the 105th Congress, when Bill Clinton occupied the White House. Recall a piece of legislation dubbed the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998" (Public Law 105-338). Not only did it call for Saddam Hussein's ouster, it also spelled out the goal of replacing his regime with a democratic Iraq.

Here's what the law says: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."

You may think the Iraq Liberation Act was ramrodded down the throats of reluctant Democrats by a House and Senate dominated by conservative Republicans. Consider the final tally: The House passed the bill by a vote of 360 to 38, with 157 Democrats joining 202 Republicans and the House's one independent to back the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime. The act, with bipartisan cosponsorship of two Democrats and six Republicans, also passed the Senate by unanimous consent. And Bill Clinton signed it into law on Oct. 31, 1998, declaring at the time that the evidence was overwhelming that freedom and the rule of law "will not happen under the current Iraq leadership."

Yes, regime change has been articulated by the administration, world without end. Bush did it again during his televised news conference on Thursday night. But that policy, along with support for a defeated Iraq's transition to democracy, was embraced years earlier by Bill Clinton and a bipartisan Congress.

So what's the point?

It's easy, perhaps too easy, for Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle to knock the administration's approach to Iraq as untenable now that the United States is on the ropes in the U.N. Security Council and much of the world seems mobilized against Washington. But the encouragement to overthrow Hussein and to bring a new Iraqi government to power are goals initiated by Congress -- with Daschle's support, and, it should be noted, with minimal debate or discussion with the American people.

To be sure, the Iraq Liberation Act contemplated American-backed Iraqi opposition groups doing the actual fighting. But the endorsement of military sanctions against Iraq, along with financial assistance to get the job done, was a congressional mandate backed on both sides of the Capitol and on both sides of the aisle.

And that, as I watch Democratic leaders and some presidential contenders now slip and slide, peep and hide and try to have it both ways on Iraq, is what is so scuzzy.

Check out last fall's joint resolution on the use of force against Iraq, which passed the House 296 to 133 and the Senate 77 to 23, with Daschle voting "aye." It authorizes Bush to go to war with Iraq if he thinks U.N. diplomacy "is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq."

Yes, the Bush White House is eager to get it on with Saddam Hussein. But whether you are pro- or anti-war, please keep this in mind when accounting time comes: The idea of confronting Saddam Hussein, removing him from power and liberating the Iraqi people from the horror of autocratic rule got its validation on Capitol Hill.

Which makes it all the more galling to learn that now, with more than 200,000 troops massed in the Persian Gulf region and with the nation on the verge of war, many of the members who voted yes to all that is now unfolding in the United Nations and regarding Iraq were merely posturing. They never had the courage of their convictions.

I write this as one who has serious reservations about the wisdom of this country's trying to democratize a post-Hussein Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. The notion of an American or U.S.-picked international Caesar running the show in Iraq with thousands of allied military and civilian workers ought to concentrate the mind of every member of Congress. How would an Iraqi government honed and shaped by Western powers be regarded by its neighbors? And what's the price tag for rebuilding Iraq and running its economy while at the same time suppressing warlordism, refereeing regional strife and fighting off internal and external power grabs? That Congress hasn't budgeted for any of this makes the situation all the riskier, given our already shaky economy.

If, or probably at this stage the issue is when, war comes, Bush said in his news conference that "we will disarm Iraq . . . there will be a regime change." That will be only one milestone. After the promised military victory, we will get to see whether a U.S.-created democratic Iraq has much of a chance.

At some point down the road, however, there will be another day of reckoning here in this country as we tabulate the costs in American lives and treasure. Congress, as certain as the seasons, will call the administration on the carpet to account for things that it did or failed to do in Iraq.

But, lest we forget, the U.S. Congress also deserves its day in the dock.

e-mail: kingc@washpost.com

[IJ]

The Downing Street memo appears to many, including me, to indicate that Bush/Blair:

--decided to wage war while they were saying they were trying to avoid it. This, to me, is aka lying, although we will hear support for the practice.

--provoked situations that would support that plan for war; were "fixing" facts around the policy, rather than the policy around the facts: once more, "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

--felt that the case for war was thin WHEN they had decided to have one: "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force."

--felt the war could be used for political ends: "he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections."

--Didn't think the war was legal, which is why the UN angle was pursued: "The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case."

Now it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference what other people also did. For example, it doesn't matter to me if Congress abdicated their authority to declare war; I think that was wrong. It doesn't matter to me if Congress and Clinton supported regime change. Jeezey Peezey, who in their right mind didn't want the guy gone? There is a difference between supporting regime change and declaring war under a specific set of conditions. Seems like the memo, citing the attorney general, agrees with me on this one.

"If you decide to do something, you make a case to do it. Period. End of story."

Actually, if the "you" here is "me," then I do it differently. Instead of saying I'm trying to avoid war when I'm actively trying to set one up, I make a case for war in public and try to encourage Congress to declare one.

"Take out the author's quotes and pejorative-laden words. Then what do you have left?"

I dunno--quotes from the memo itself?? Is " Already," a perjorative now? This is what the people involved said about their plans. When he quotes someone, is he not supposed to use quotes? Sheesh.

"And we already know by now that it was pointless going the U.N. route"

Is this relevant to the thinking that occured before this was known? When, at the time war had been decided, the memo indicates of the three potential legal avenues, justification BESIDES UN seemed skimpy to the very people who had already decided to go to war? Sounds like they had made a call and were working to support it. And lo, mistakes were made.

"God's truth on any subject is never as simple as the sanitized version you get in the textbooks and the popular press"

Good, sounds great, because Bush can just tell us what God thinks. Anyway--what about this memo is NOT source data? I mean, what do you want, an audiotape?

Then there's the (generally) flexible talk on the media and the UN.

The media is hopelessly biased and its thoughts are unimportant. This memo is unimportant because the media didn't run with it.

Popular press accounts are sanitized and derivative. Here is a popular press account of how this was Congress' decision.

The UN is a hopelessly corrrupt meaningless organization. It is of great importance to wage war if UN resolutions were violated, even if the UN disagrees.

I don't follow.

[Bill Glasheen]

Popular press accounts are sanitized and derivative. Here is a popular press account of how this was Congress' decision.

What really matters here is the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338)

It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.

That's not op-ed; that's primary source information and a matter of public record. And it establishes that the intent and reason to remove Saddam was made 3 years before GW ever took office.

I'm with the media, Ian. I still don't get what the big deal is with these memos. They didn't really break all that much new ground. It was just a further development in the process to remove Saddam. It's a dot in a long spectrum of activity that spanned quite a few presidencies.

The UN is a hopelessly corrrupt meaningless organization. It is of great importance to wage war if UN resolutions were violated, even if the UN disagrees.

I don't follow.

I know. Many hold your point of view.

And many see what you don't. And that point of view stipulates that there should be consequences for violating U.N. resolutions. And if violating 13 of them in a few years isn't a good reason to kick some bootie, then war never should be waged.

No amount of debate will cause the two sides to see eye-to-eye on this. And no amount of window dressing is going to make any side look rosey in these scenarios.

C'est la guerre!

- Bill

[MEaton]

The memo was wrighten In July 2002

Then we decided to go to the United Nations and went through that process, which resulted in the November 2002 United Nations resolution, to give a final chance to Saddam Hussein to comply with international law. He didn't do so. And that was the reason why we had to take military action. The UN still didnt support us. even after ther "final chance" I guess the members of the UN that where in the pocket of Saddam where watting for the final final, or final final final chance before thay would support it. (like that would ever happen)

Also On July 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the Bush Administration did not influence the intelligence findings. In particular, the committee noted that it "did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities."

But some will look past all the facts and read the poorly worded memo wrighten by an aide to British foreign policy advisor as a "smoking gun" theat bush was "fixing" the intell. and boy I didnt know Bush had so much power as to be able to fix the intell for the rest of the world as well.

I dont see it that way But thats me. And I cant agree with the idea its an illegal war just because the "UN" didnt support us considering thay where on saddams payrole.

I think the Left is placing to much on somthing wrighten by an aide to an adviser from another country to try to build a Republican consperacy (somthing thay love to beleave in) that isnt there.

[jorvik]

one thing that brought a smile to my face was seeing George Galloway before the US senate.
Quote
"Galloway vs. The US Senate: Transcript of Statement
George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, delivered this statement to US Senators today who have accused him of corruption

"Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.
"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.



I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.



"Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.

"You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.

"Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil'.

"Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.

"Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today.

"You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realize played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.

"There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.

"You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

"I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.

"And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].

"Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today.

"Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.

"Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is?

"Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in England late last year.

"You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life. There could possibly be no documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.

"And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period.

"But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.

"Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.

"In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.

"The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

© 2005 Times Newspapers

....Lies upon lies, It would be nice to see Dubya debate with this guy.....................Tony won't ....and Tony is supposed to be smart

[MikeK]

Is this the same George Galloway with ties to the PLO?

[jorvik]

I dunno.but surely that would be a good thing .......I mean Israel has broken more UN sanctions than Saddam has had hot dinners

[cxt]

IJ

Uhh, I am quite sure that detailed plans have been put to paper for the invasion of Cuba.
Does that mean we are going to invade next week?
Highly doubt it.

Deailed plans exsist for almost every possible military action--as has already been mentioned above.
At what point folks decided to invade is not really suported by the plans or the memos.

More to the point--as has also been addressed--SH was unquestionably gulity of multple violations of UNSCR 687--which was a titular cease-fire agreement.
ie, break any of the stipulations and we start shooting again.

Really chaps my hide when folks spin that it was ONLY about WMD's--which its ALWAYS better to err on the side of caution with in any case.
Don't 'really" want to give the benefit of the doubt to a muderous madman.

But we KNOW that he was

-Importing weapons
-Stockpiling weapons
-Stockpiling muntions, ammo, spare parts for military use
-Suported international terror, gave large sums of money to the families of murder bombers in Palistine, provide safe houses and medical treatment to internationally wanted terrorists.
-Subverting an UN program designed to provide his people with food and medical supples and used it to purchase weapons and influence.
-Shooting at the troops patrolling the no-fly zone.
-Plus a little matter mass muder of his own people.

The kind of logic you espouse here is akin to busting a guy for multiple rape, multiple murder, assult, arson, drug trafficing, and blackmail.
Convicting him of the multiple murders, the rapes, the arson, and the drug trafficing, but when he beats the rap on the blackmail claiming he is somehow innocent.

Focusing on the one crime that SH may not have commited, while ignoring all the ones for which he is guilty, is hardly rational.

[cxt]

Jorvik

Was going to actually try and point something out here.

Decided that anyone whom can--presumably with a whats called a "stright face"--make your last post.

Well chances are you would not bother listening to the response.

On the off chance you do actually do wish to have an intellegent discussion on the matter--chew on this:

Article by Steven Shamrock-

1-before 1990 the SC passed 175 resoultions--97 of which were vs Isreal

2-Before 1990 the GA voted on 690 resolutions 429 were directed vs Isreal--dispite the fact that Isreal is the only democracy in the ME.
And that Isreali arabs are the best treated group of arabs in the ME.

3-The UN was silent when Jorden systmaticlly desicrated the ancient Jewish cemetary on the Moun to of Olives

4- The UN was silent when Jorden destroyed 58 Synagoges in Jesuslem

5-The UN was silent when Jorden forced a apartihed like policy pf preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western wall

6-The Un was silent when for 18 months Isreal was terrorized by indiscriminate sucide bombing campaing by teh PA leadership

7-Isreal is the only member of the UN that is not allowed a seat on the SC

8-Isreal s the only nation exclude from the regional group system. Since it has no group, it is the only one of 190 member states that is not eligable to serve on UN commisions

9-IN recent years the UN has annually passed 5 resolutions a year condiming Isreal, by contrast, the nations of Afganistain, Cuba, Congo, Iran, Iraq, Russia/Chechnya, Serra Leone, Southeast Europe and Sudan have had only ONE resoultion.

(so the situation in Isreal is 5 TIMES WORSE THAN THE SUDAN???? dude there is a full-on genocide going on there)

10-Nov 29 is the official UN Day of International Solidarity with the Palistinian people--no other people has such a day

11-Isreal is the only nation to which a special investigator with an open ended mandate to inspect its human rights is assigned.

(again nations like Cuba, Sudan, a couple of nations that still allow outright slavary come to mind)

12-UNSCO, in Paris started passing resolutions about the protection of Muslim holy sites in Jeruslum in 1968--NO RESOLUTIONS ABOUT THE PROTECTION OF OR ACCESS TO JEWISH SITES WERE PASSED FROM 1946 (when Jorden controlled isreal) to 1967.

Yeah, the UN is sure the place to go for fair and evenhanded treatment.

Sheesh.

[IJ]

People, I promise I haven't lost ANY sleep that Saddam is gone. The man was bad, it is good the bad man is gone. Not the point.

Cxt, as I've said before, the issue is not whether plans existed, as all reasonable people would expect, but whether a DECISION had been made to go to war WHILE these leaders were saying they were trying to avoid such an event. On my planet that is called lying. I never said the man was good, or innocent, or that we should not have supported regime change. Or that Congress didn't. I am just saying it matters if our President is honest or not. And I believe it affects the way we interpret inteligence data if the plan is already set. And I believe it matters HOW we declare war, and I believe it matters that we make legitimate distinctions and decisions when looking at this stuff, for example:

--WE are not charged with enforcing UN rules outside of our role in the UN. Why do we keep hearing this? The man broke those rules, yes. When do Canadian police come arrest us for violating US speeding laws?

--Congress endorsing regime change is not the same as endorsing war.

--A contingency plan is only a contingency plan to the extent that it is contingent on something. If war is already planned, this is not the case.

--there is a serious problem if the reason for war evolves after the fact. Especially if the people do not notice.

--there is a very serious problem if the people are unaware of the lack of al qaeda / 9-11 link with Iraq, or to put it another way, if people continue to believe that there was such a link. It suggests that we've been happily reeducated by people who don't trust the way we would behave if we knew the truth.

We have also heard that this memo is potentially inaccurate and lefties are just lusting for it to be true because we hate Bush. You might be accurate if you imagined that my dislike for Bush, and my preexisting bias, and PLAN to vote against him, might cause me to overread certain intelligence, and conclude that he has WMD when he does not, and then invade him. There are however key differences, which I will leave to your imagination, since the conversation is going in circles and no minds are being changed.

[MikeK]

--Congress endorsing regime change is not the same as endorsing war.

It means several things with one of them using force.

[cxt]

IJ

Still fail to see where you getting the decision was made--and how what your looking at differs from just being ready to go?

I know that how your interprating the memo, I just don't see it that way.

In answer to your questions:

1-We are "charged" to do what we think is right.
The UN is hopeless unable to enforce it rules--as it has proven over and over and oover and over again--witness the lack of action in the Sudan--they actually, litterally sat around debating weither or not the mass murders could be defined as "genocide"
Even in peacetime they are woefully unable to perform primary functions--by the time the UN arrived wiht ANY aid for the Tsumani, the USA and the Australians and some other had already been on the ground for 2 weeks saving lives.
We acted because we had no other choice.
In a very real way that choice was taken from us by a corrupt and weak system that preferrred to take bribes rather than act.

-Semantics about "regime change" your positing either that Congresss as awhole is too stupid to know what they were discussing (which given Congress may not be all that far off the mark )
Plus you had a sitting President, and Rhoades Scholor that on camra asked for the definations of the words "the" and "is" whom also claimed to not to understand the meaning of the words "sex" and "intercourse."
So brains may well be in short supply in DC.

-Wrong a "contingency plan" is exactly that--thats why they are there--IN CASE YOU DECIDE TO ACT OR NEED THEM.

-The "reasons for the war" were stated up-front and they include the things I listed above---sure the WMD's were BIG part of the pitch--but what I see as a BIGGER problem is how folks just "forget" that the other stuff was ALWAYS part of the deal--folks, esp the Left do whatever they can to obscure this fact.

While we are on the subject, I still fail to see the problem with not finding WMD's--is this "really" an issue where anyone can afford to take any kind of chance on??
We had plenty of folks saying that he had them--he refused to allow ANYONE to watch the destrcution of his WMD's (AS HE WAS REQUIRED TO DO UNDER HIS CEASE FIRE AGREEMENT)
He troops were training in bio/chem suits.
Even SH thought he had them.
Gen Franks--in his books states that he was personally, to his face, informed by very high ranked folks in two seperate ME nations that Iraq had and was ready to use WMD's.

Don't see where we could resonably have risked that he did not.
Say I give you a packet of white powder--the chances are 1 in 1 million that it contains Anthrax--I tell you so up front.
You think I could get you give it your child to eat?
I think not--and I think that we could not take even a remote chance that SH could do far worse.

--No. there is a "serious" problem is folks look right at the internationally wanted terrorist that were in Iraq and think that because they may not be "AQ" that it was not serious risk.
Just ask the folks killed by the guys that WERE there.
Or since they were killed by the very terrorist that SH supported--you might have to ask their familes.

And AZ DID get medical treatment there after Afganistan fell.
There are other links--but the bottom line SH was funding and supporting and helping international terror.
Thats bad for everyone--and a clear violation of his cease fire agreement.

Look I am no fan of Bush, but I do think he did the right thing here--I also think he was the best of a bad couple of choices.

[chewy]

IJ,

I commend you for trying, but the people your are trying to convince can't be convinced until they get over the "Us versus Them"/"Good vs. Evil"/"Black vs.White"/"Left vs. Right" mindset. I find it entertaining that rather than disprove certain points IJ is making, people jump on the fact that an left/democrat/them/liberal president signed off on regime change. That kind of thinking totally misses the point. The world isn't black and white people, it is many shades of grey. Stop believing the punditry from both of the major parties a nd start asking yourself "is the guy I voted for misleading me?" It's sad that anyone would be so committed to one party's platform or another, that they would never question thier "facts".


Enough, I'm rambling and these types of topics depress me . Thanks for allowing me to vent.

Let the flaming begin,

chewy