My friend Eileen thinks I've been spending too much time with C-Span watching the world of politics. Sorry Eileen... I can't help it. And to everyone else hoping for a humurous, upbeat post -- skip this one.
Anyway, I'll keep it short... The Downing Street Minutes which were printed in the London Times nearly a month ago clearly prove that President Bush had planned to attack and invade Iraq well before the start of talk of weapons of mass destruction and such.
This country was forced to sit through two terms of Independent Counsel investigating President Clinton's love life. The argument was that he was the President and if he lied about having an affair maybe he was lying about other things. Now the right wing wants to gloss over a Republican President lying to the Congress and the American people for the sole reason of going to war to gain political capital.
It's disgusting and any argument otherwise is spurious, shallow and hypocritical...
Go to AfterDowningStreet.org or to Congressman John Conyers' site.
Friday, June 17, 2005
It hurts to hear...
Posted by Shawn at 8:36 PM
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13 comments:
What gets me is it's not in our best national interest. Such a waste of American life and money. Ironically, a lot of his big opponents are on the Right, like Pat Buchanan and his book Republic, not Empire.
I'm probably economically to the Right of you, but that's cool, you're an intelligent person and I respect you entirely. That said, I think we agree that Iraq is not in our best interest as a nation and that stupid war is going to bankrupt us economically and possibly morally as well.
Iraq was never about anything but strategy -- show the Muslim world the US can come in and take over at will. Saddam made a tasty target. I always thought this was obvious, but Bush and Co. insisted on this WMD business and flimsy links to terrorism. Now we're getting the terrorism all right, and the war's biggest fans have kicked in their circular reasoning to show this proves the war was the right move. The UN deserves a lot of criticism, but not for the restraint shown here.
Can I just ask a question?
If Bush didn't take Saddam out, who would have and what would have been a good enough reason? I'm going to read through this Downing St. Memo, but that question of mine still remains:
Should Saddam be allowed to remain in power and if not, who would have taken him down and why? What reason would America have accepted?
The question was never, 'Is Saddam an a$$hole?' because pretty much the entire world knew he was...
Does anybody really miss him? I doubt it, but again that's not the point.
The reason we gave for invading Iraq was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and this put us and the world in danger.
Neutral UN weapons inspectors went in and were saying there weren't any WMD. Our President told us in no uncertain terms than Saddam did indeed have WMD and that we were in imminent danger.
Many in the Congress and in this country believed President Bush. Others were skeptical, but the country was still in a spin after the Sept. 11 attacks and a lot of people -- myself included -- wanted to see some revenge.
The problem isn't that the President made a wee little mistake... The problem is that the President and his administration manipulated and even fabricated facts in order to send our troops to war. All the fine talk of freeing the Iraqi people and instilling a democratic government started well after the invasion began when it became clear that there were no weapons of mass destruction.
Mind you... the whole time this was going on, the government of North Vietnam was jumping up and down and essentially yelling, 'Hey! We're working on nuclear weapons... What about us!?' Why not invade North Korea and topple their government? That's easy. It would have cost us more troops than Viet Nam and we still might not have won.
If it was altruism, then why not send our troops to Africa? Again, that's easy. We aren't stopping genocides in African countries because we don't have anything to gain and, frankly, Americans don't really care that much about brown people.
One of the saddest things I heard while watching a hearing this last week was a woman who lost her son in Iraq speaking. She was angry and hurt that she lost her son... she was more angry and hurt to find that her son didn't die for the reasons the President used for going to war... she could barely speak when talking about hearing the President of the United States make a joke out of looking for WMD (the imfamous looking under the desk... no they're not here crack).
That crack was in response to the repeated questioning from the media and the opposition about where these alleged weapons were. Republicans got a yuck out of it, but this lady's son was killed that day.
THe questions really shouldn't be 'Should Saddam be allowed to remain in power and if not, who would have taken him down and why? What reason would America have accepted?'
What we should be asking is whether that was the real reason in the first place and if it was why deceive the American people with all these other sham arguments. And would Congress allowed the President to send troops to Iraq if he had not made claims about weapons of mass destruction?
Well first, my question was aimed at the root of the matter which is Saddam. Most everyone can agree that the world is better off when he doesn't have power or control. I didn't want to address the memo because I was still researching it and reading various articles. Now that I have read several, I'm not even sure the memo is real.
The reporter who first shed light on them, admitted that he retyped the orginals with an old fashioned type writer to protect identities. He said in one interview that he threw the originals away or desroyed them...then he said he returned the orginals after typing copies of them.
Why?
Then the memos were "authenticated" by a source at the AP which is retarded because how can one authenticate something that had been retyped?
I've read a few arguments in defense of the documents being real and the only real argument they have is a strawman.
They are saying that if the memos were fake, they would 'say more'.
Whatever.
My point is: It doesn't matter why Bush wanted to remove Saddam from power, either passively or aggressively, liberal America would have never found any reason good enough if the threat of war is realistic enough.
Personally I'm please that Saddam is out, but the aftermath shows this story is still being written, and I'm not so sure it's in America's interest how this was handled. If Bush had just said "We're going to show Muslims that we can knock them off anytime we want," it would have been even less popular, but a lot more honest.
I read something that I found interesting. It was basically a statement to the effect that invading a country with the sole goal of removing the leader of that country was both unlawful and unethical. Because of this, if the UK wanted to join the US in invading Iraq there would need to be another primary reason for doing so. This was a statement made by the English equivalent of our Secretary of State before the invasion.
About the question of whether it was right or wrong to remove Saddam Hussein from power. On one hand, I'm okay doing it on the other not so much.
If you feel that it was an okay thing to do then you don't believe in the sovereignty of nations. In that case, the US has to concede that they deserve no rights of sovereignty themselves other than the ones we can defend by might. I'm actually fine with that too... it's probably a more honest and realistic view.
On the other hand, it you believe in the sovereign rights of nations, then going in and removing the leader of a country is reprehensible. I'm fine with that too. There's a certain honor in saying I don't agree with you, but I respect your right to be that way.
Either way... Bush and Co. have done a rather good job of working the public. I even respect that from a political point of view. I never liked Bush to begin with, because he's an untruthful, spiteful and self-aggrandizing prick... That aside, I'm reminded daily why I'm no longer a Republican and nearly every other day why I no longer go to church.
Is the world a better place with Saddam out of power? Probably. Is the world a safer place now? Not by a long shot.
"...a statement to the effect that invading a country with the sole goal of removing the leader of that country was both unlawful and unethical."
*laughing* That's ridiculous. Plain and simple. Unlawful and unethical? Who cares? Saddam's rights as a respected leader are null and void.
I could see that if the US wanted to tromp in and remove some leader that is respected, globaly, as a good leader--than yeah, unlawful and unethical.
However, when you're a dictator that rules with fear and death, you forefit those rights, right along with the rights you took away from the people you govern, as far as I'm concerned.
It's so ironic to me that the American public, in general, could watch movies like Hotel Rwanda and then wonder why 'WE' never did anything to stop those atrocities but on the same hand, Saddam was waltzing around killing and experimenting as he saw fit and we are willing to do NOTHING about it.
I guess the Iraqi people were better off had WE never interviened?
Just out of curiousity--since you mentioned it--Bush is your every other day reminder of why you don't go to church?
I'd like to discuss this with you, if you feel comfortable.
Statements like that provoke many, many questions. I, of course, have plenty. I'll respect your privacy on that one if you want, but if you're open to talking about it, I'd be more than happy for you to explain that to me.
Almost everyone admits that removing Hussein from power was justified. For me, his human rights violations were reason enough.
We weren't trying to get rid of WMDs in World War II and I think most Americans who look back on it believe America's involvement was right.
The argument I dislike most is the "This other country is bad too, so if we didn't deal with it, we can't possibly justify going to war with Iraq."
This is like saying that a fireman should not put out a fire in his city, because he failed to put out a fire in Canada. A fireman can't
save every house in the world all at once. That doesn't mean he should
be condemned for saving the houses he saves.
The United States is at least fighting a few fires. The countries
that should be condemned are the once who sit complacently, refusing to fight any.
Hi Miranda... haven't seen you here for a while. Welcome back.
The problem with Fireman Bush is that he went in to save the building and really didn't care about the people in it. It wasn't until the building was his that the people became valuable to him as his excuse for going in to begin with.
And the reason he needs those people now is that he was yelling, 'It's gonna blow! It's gonna blow!' And now it's obvious that the smoke was some old guys cooking over an open flame.
I have no problem with saying that we have might, so we're going to use it for good.
My problem is that if we're going to play Superman and save the world from a dangerous threat then how about focusing on a country that actually is a threat. And if we're going to go defend people from horrors can we please notice that there are places where hundreds of thousands of adults, children and babies are being hacked with machetes and tossed in rivers or stinking heaps of flesh.
Hey Sadie, the quick answer about Christianity is that too many Christians are waving the flag of religion, demanding that others live up to their standards while not living up to those standards themselves.
Why G.W. is a constant reminder of everything I despise...?
Jesus was born, preached, performed miracles and was tempted by the Devil in desert with the power of Kings...
George W. was born, preached and was tempted by the Devil in the desert with the power of Kings...
What's the difference? Well, I'm pretty sure that George W. isn't the son of God, he hasn't performed any miracles, and where Jesus turned away from the temptation of the Devil, George W. went looking for him and calls for others to come along with him.
And what's the currency he's using to buy other's souls? Religion.
I should know a Christian by his works, not because he's told me. Bush was elected and then re-elected in no small part because of his claim to be a Christian.
Frankly, if a man like Bush can be considered shining symbol of the religious right, then I don't want to have anything to do with that religion. Being a Christian is more than saying, 'Hey y'all, I'm a Christian...'
Interesting comparison.
I really don't think Bush's victory in the last race was because of the Christian Right. I think the two biggest reasons he won are these:
1. He started this war and many people thought he would be the best person to see us through it and finish it. I've heard plenty of people say that it would be folly to stick a newcomer into that mess, especially when that newcomer has a completely different agenda than the one who started it.
2. Kerry was not a strong enough candidate. If you had put Bush up against, say, Clinton in this last race, it would have been a total defeat.
The liberals have absolutelt had it with Bush and there was such a HUGE push to get more democratic/liberal voters, more than I have seen in awhile (since I've been interested in politics). The time was right, but Kerry just wasn't the man.
The whole thing about Bush being a Christian, for me, is like this: I've read his testimony. I've heard the story of how he was saved. Who am I to doubt another man's relationship with God?
If he is: Great. If he isn't and he just uses the whole thing as a backdrop for support: than shame on him.
I appreciate his willingness to be unpopular on tough subjects like abortion and prayer in schools.
You're right about testing a man's walk by his fruit.
I don't think I'd even try to be in politics as a Christian. It's a system designed to make you compromise your integrity.
Anyhoo,
I'm just concerned about the way you think Bush's politics are a reflection of Church, in general. At my church, we didn't even discuss the presidential race in an open forum from the pulpit. Everyone was entitled to vote their own way.
http://thisisyourwar.blogspot.com/
Check this blog out. I thought you might like it. When our local paper ran a story about blogs, this guy's blog was in it because his parents live around here. It's all about his experiences in the war; really interesting.
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