Interesting quote from Bush in 1999 to the Houston Chronicle
dazzleman:
Quote from: Wakie on May 21, 2005, 11:11:41 AM
dazzleman, Sept 11th and the Iraq war were not linked. Bin Laden had repeatedly called for the overthrow of Hussein. They were not allies.
They are linked in a larger sense. The real enemy is not just Osama bin Laden, but the entire terrorist movement, of which Saddam Hussein was a part.
Iraq's brutal dictatorship was symptomatic of the ugly repression and stultification that is common in the middle east, and which gives rise to terrorism. Getting rid of that regime is a step toward draining the terrorist swamp.
I find that those who oppose the Iraq war are narrowly legalistic, and nobody ever won a war by being narrowly legalistic. It is a prescription for defeat. American society on the whole is overly legalistic, and overly believing in legalistic solutions to larger and broader problems, and this is far from the only example of that disturbing trend.
phk:
Quote from: dazzleman on May 21, 2005, 11:25:09 AM
Quote from: Wakie on May 21, 2005, 11:11:41 AM
dazzleman, Sept 11th and the Iraq war were not linked. Bin Laden had repeatedly called for the overthrow of Hussein. They were not allies.
They are linked in a larger sense. The real enemy is not just Osama bin Laden, but the entire terrorist movement, of which Saddam Hussein was a part.
Iraq's brutal dictatorship was symptomatic of the ugly repression and stultification that is common in the middle east, and which gives rise to terrorism. Getting rid of that regime is a step toward draining the terrorist swamp.
I find that those who oppose the Iraq war are narrowly legalistic, and nobody ever won a war by being narrowly legalistic. It is a prescription for defeat. American society on the whole is overly legalistic, and overly believing in legalistic solutions to larger and broader problems, and this is far from the only example of that disturbing trend.
Lying propaganda continues to gush from the Bush administration, like vomit from a drunk.
Saddam was himself a big-time persecutor of Muslims and was repeatedly at odds with bin Laden.
Islamic fundamentalism is booming in Iraq NOW, even among Secular Sunnis, because the forced secularism of Saddam isn't there. Eliminating Saddam was a victory for bin Laden, who considered Ba'athist secularism as a competitor. He hated the social permissiveness of Iraq, its modernity, its general equality for women, allowing music, etc.
The Iraq war also caused us to neglect efforts to isolate, protect and destroy fissionable materials to keep them away from terrorists.
Bush found that out the hard way, now he's doing the same humanitarian binge "Democracy-for-a-heathen-people", maybe because the increasing amounts of insurgents are a threat to national security. Whoda'think? Why'd you fail at National Security Bush? Why did more troops die after Saddam Hussein's government, collapsed and fell Bush?
In a sense the Iraq war was a purely optional war that made the only terror problem worse with Bush failing to grasp how badly he failed.
Or maybe its because former Trotskyists are doing the bitch-fighting in the GOP foreign policy circles.
True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자):
Quote from: dazzleman on May 21, 2005, 06:39:42 AM
What was Lincoln's exit strategy in the civil war? What was Roosevelt's exit strategy in World War II? Exit strategy talk is applicable more to purely optional wars that don't directly involve US security interests than to wars taken in the name of pure national interest.
Whether or not the war was optional, the timing of the start of combat operations was. The Second Iraq War could have easily waited another year so that proper preparations could be made. Instead the political hacks in the Defense Department made optimistic assumptions and based their post-war plans on them. They acted as if they had never hear that war is messy and unpredicatable and that you therefore plan for the worst and hope for the best. There was AFAIK not even faulty intelligence indicating that there was an imminent threat that required immediate action to prevent when we invaded.
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