The one & only reason not to re-elect George Bush

[Tman]

Hey guys, long time no see. I've been reading all your posts & thought it time I rejoined the fray. I really like all the discussions you have. Below is in my own words & this is the first place I have thought to post it. Let me know what you think.

Tman

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Posturing continues on both sides for the upcoming election, bringing up a litany of positions that either side is for or against. The parties continue to try and influence an electorate that is highly divided. But it really only comes down to one thing:

Going to war on baseless information, and thumbing our noses at the majority of the world by ignoring their views, has angered the world to the point of destroying our national credibility on the world stage.

Now, in the beginning, I was behind President Bush when he decided to take Saddam (and the UN) to task and force this ruthless dictator to abide by the agreements he had made in 1991. It was high time we called them on the UNâ??s ineptitude and inability to hold Saddam accountable. What is the reason to have laws or rules if they will be broken? There have to be consequences. Now, the President and his cabinet went to the UN and they got everyone to agree that Saddam must abide and if he didnâ??t, there would be serious consequences. Yes!

So, the UN inspectors returned to Iraq. I fully expected the US to give the weapon inspectors a list of 20 sites and maps that had large â??Xâ?

[Top Gun]

Baseless information? Check the facts. Remember that yellow uranium claim that was being toted as a lie? Turns out it was true. How about those convoys heading to Syria in the dead of night? I'll bet they were packing more than lollipops. The whole world knew, for a fact, that Saddam had illegal weapons during the period from 1991 to the war. What we should be concerned with is, who has the weapons now? That's a higher priority than all of this political posturing.

[Ferno]

here we go again....

[Tman]

How about those convoys heading to Syria in the dead of night? I'll bet they were packing more than lollipops.

Just as those we knew the scud missile trucks we were shown high-res satellite shots of turned out to be milk trucks?

You need to question authority more, Top.

And as for your statement:

The whole world knew, for a fact, that Saddam had illegal weapons during the period from 1991 to the war

As I recall from the vast majority of the UN, I don't think the world agrees with your statement.

[Top Gun]

Then why the constant sanctions, inspections, etc.? If I remember, from 1991-2003, the UN was virtually unanimous in its belief that there were WMDs in Iraq. What changed between then and the war for some of the members, who knows. Suffice it to say that, if we had faulty intelligence, so did the rest of the world. Also, I think it's you that needs to question what's in the media. Your first posts reeks of the rantings of a liberally-biased news organization. "Questioning authority" won't change the fact that we've found documentation of weapons, traces of weapons, and evidence that some weapons were shipped to Syria. Of course, you won't hear most of it on the local news. As I said above, the question remains, "Where did all those weapons go?" We know that, at the end of the first Gulf War, Saddam had weapons stores. Whether all of those stores were dismantled, buried, shipped to a neighboring country like Syria, or simply exaggerated by scientists is unknown. That's where the real question lies, one that is more important than any anti-Bush campaigning.

I know the whole forum, myself included, is sick and tired of reading/participating in this argument . Face it: no one here is going to change their opinions. Sometimes, it's just not worth the bother .

[Lothar]

Your post reads entirely like a rehash of the standard talking points:
- there were no WMD in Iraq
- Bush lied about WMD
- Iraq and Al Qaeda don't have any ties
- we've made the US hated worldwide

The first and second points will be debated for the next 50 years, so I'm just going to leave those alone. But let's look at the other 2:

We are told by the 9-11 commission... there were no ties to Al-Queda.

This is a LIE that has been propagated far too long.

What we were told by the 9-11 commission is that Iraq did not cooperate with AQ on attacks against the US, specifically, the 9-11 attacks. As far as I know, the 9-11 commission never attempted to determine whether Iraq and AQ had ties in other circumstances.

thumbing our noses at the majority of the world by ignoring their views, has angered the world to the point of destroying our national credibility on the world stage.

How is it "thumbing our noses at the majority of the world by ignoring their views" when some 30 nations came with us? Or by "majority of the world" do you mean France, Germany, and Russia? Even so, I'd hardly call what we did "ignoring" them -- more like, refusing to let them dictate our foreign policy. They said "don't go" and we said "we're going, but you don't have to" -- how is that "ignoring" them?

Also, since when has the US *ever* had credibility or been liked overseas? I spent a few days in Europe in the mid-90's, after the Berlin wall and Communism both fell -- both of which should've made the US very well liked in Europe. And even back then, they didn't much like us.

I think people made a big mistake in thinking the world's attitude toward us on 9/12 was normal. There was a huge amount of sympathy, which lasted for about 3 months (which is more than I expected) before we got back to the same old thing. They don't think particularly less of us now than they did 4 years ago, or 8 years ago, or 12 years ago. You're just more likely to be listening for it because somebody's talking point said so.

[Iceman]

[edit]
I have no business posting in the E&C

[Birdseye]

Great post Tman! I applaud you for being candid and honest. Most people couldn't make the turnaround--it just wouldn't compute in their head. America can't do anything wrong! Everything we've ever done is right!

BTW, I hope you don't think this is the ONLY reason not to "re-elect" him.

It's funny to watch the bush supporters run around and grasp at straws isn't it?
I remember questioning the intelligence they used at the time, it was obviously shakey at best to me.

Lo and behold, no WMD found. But all you see is ego defense from the pro-war bush crowd. Gone are the cries of "Mushroom cloud!" They couldn't handle being wrong about something! So now when you question the Iraq war you get the Hannities of the world saying "So the world is better off with Saddam in power!! Liberation for Iraqis!" Battle cries of WMD are gone. Motives are revised. Hundreds of billions of american dollars later. Are you really safer now?

At least the majority of the american people are waking up and think the war was a mistake. That gives me some kind of confidence in the masses I thought was completely gone.

Do I think Bush lied? We will never know. There is no concrete proof of it. My suspicion is that Bush closely listens to slightly psychotic hawks such as Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Pearle who had a pre-decided to attack Iraq while clinton was still in office. Bush believed what he was doing was morally right, so if he told a few white lies it didn't matter to him. I'm sure he believed the WMD were real, but maybe embellished his own case here and there by relying on shakey information "for the greater good."

Hermann Goering, one of Hitler's top aides, said before being sentenced to death at Nuremberg: "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Sound familiar? I know I was called unpatriotic by many. Remember the divisive phrase: "With us or against us" ? You call that diplomacy? You call that uniting a country?

Wake up. Some messed up things were done by this man.

[Ferno]

just as a guess, and this is kind of OT..

but the liklihood of AQ pulling something within the next two years has a 60% probability, if not higher.

[Will Robinson]

Tman, I'm one of the ones who would have been in favor of, and in fact was vocal in support of, getting rid of Saddam before 9/11 so my view may not fit the common mold but...

I think you laid out a fair assesment of the scenario leading up to the war and the fact that the reasons for going were valid as you point out I don't see any reason we shouldn't have. So that leaves us with the results of the war and it seems to me you are looking for a reason to doubt it just because there were no large stockpiles of WMD's found.

To me that is a small matter that doesn't outwiegh the whole scenario that justified the invasion to begin with. I think your being swayed by what you percieve as "world opinion" and ignoring the very real justifications you outlined.
If you found out there were truckloads of WMD's that made there way to Syria or more missiles, gas, etc. are found in Iraq which of your positions would be wrong and *why* did you abandon it?

You were either right to begin with or you were never right! His failure to inventory and his quest for more of what he was supposed to get rid of was enough justification to go after him.
Exactly how much he had on him at the time he was busted is trivial information.

If all other things were the same but Al Gore was the president do you think anyone but republicans would have chanted the "whole world's against us" mantra...Dan Rather?....Peter Jennings?....Tom Brokaw?...CNN?....Reuters?....or just Bill O'Rielly and Rush Limbaugh?
Without the the whole 'Hate Bush' tantrum going on in pop-culture I think the worlds mouthpieces would have put things in their proper perspective on this whole issue.

PS: You know France, Germany and Russia are probably very pleased with the notion that they are now the "rest of the world"!
Considering the track record of two of those nations the press should be a little more careful assigning such power to them.

[Tman]

Wow, thx for all the replies.

Birdseye - I don't think it's so much as people waking up, as remembering why we went to war in the first place.

I guess the real thing that bothers me is not that I think Bush lied. Rather, I believe that not enough due diligence was done on the information given. I watched / listened quite a bit of the Senate Intelligence commission meetings on PBS / NPR. What struck me was that nearly everyone (that voted for war) paid so much attention to the "2 page summary" that wrapped up the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate which was used in the Senate Intelligence meetings to justify going to war. When the commission went into the detail of this report, the facts contained therein did not support the summary.

Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican who heads the Senate committee, told reporters that assessments that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and could make a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade were wrong.

"As the report will show, they were also unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence," he said.

"This was a global intelligence failure."

Now, as far as I'm concerned, every Senator & Congressman who reviewed this "2 page summary" are guilty of not digging deeper (yes, including even Kerry). While some can argue or discuss on how the summary got so out of whack from the contents, the last time I checked, the buck stops at the President. It is his ultimate responsibility to ensure that we are doing the right thing.

The really nagging part of all this is that the 9-11 commission did go through all the details, and went further by interviewing contributors and asking the tough questions. They came up with a completely different summary. How can this happen? For a decision of this magnitude, with so much on the line, why on earth didn't we go through this excruciating detail before we went to war? Why does this come out after the fact?.

Now, as far as the "rest of the world", why are so many focusing on the european union? What about China? India Anyone? Mexico? Canada?

EDIT: I had a map embedded here that I realize I shouldn't have...here is the link so you can go there directly: http://ruste.org/archives/000085.shtml

Boy, that map sure has a lot of blank areas and it's outdated as Spain is still listed

[Lothar]

and of course, if they didn't send troops, they're *obviously* against us, right? So, for example, Chad and Niger are (in your estimation) "against us" because, look at that, they didn't send anyone!

I like the non-equal-area projection map, too... makes it look like Russia, China, Canada, and the Ukraine account for like 60% of the world.

And, of course, if we do something the "rest of the world" doesn't like, that means we're ignoring their views, right? There's no possible way we could take their views into account and decide that it's still better to take action. That definitely counts as "thumbing our noses" at them -- how dare we act in our own best interest? That makes us total a**holes...

[Tman]

Ignore for a moment the map & reply to the text before that statement, because that's where my main argument is.