Starbuck1975 said:
Heh, come on man, there is definitly "many" reasons Bushco. pushed for war. Not just "A" reason, many different mea culpa are valid, including the ones you disregard above.
Tenet's mea culpa makes me want to puke. Leading up to the war, there were a number of courageous State Department officials who resigned in protest rather than participate in this sham of a case for war that was being sold to the American people.
They gave up careers and pensions for what they believed, and got brief mention in some of the press. That took guts. Those actions were based on deeply held principles. I pray that no one will buy this self-serving book.
Tenet was one of the few people in a position to really wake up Americans to the realities of the day, and he chose not to.
The bigger issue with this war is the absence of any clear reason or rationale -- there is actually no straight reason that you can put your finger on and say, this is why the Bush Administration went to war. Let's look at some of the advanced reasons:
1) Oil: it is fair to say that if Iraq had no oil, and was not in the biggest oil producing region in the world, both Gulf wars would never have taken place. The world has tolerated numerous invasions and oppresive governments in other places that have no oil -- and still does, Samuel Doe, Robert Mugabe, et al. Oil and or money from contracts, particularly Halliburton/KBR. The Energy Task Force docs that did get released showed that they were intent on divvying up Iraq's oil fields. The "no bid" contracts are a no-brainer. Hell, Halliburton had been doing business with Iraq, Iran, and Libya through "foreign subsidiaries" for years.
Indeed, Iraq in the Neocon's fantasy world would have left OPEC and its production ceilings, a disaster for the major oil companies. Only the incompetence of the Bush adminstration has caused the opposite result, actually lowering Iraqi oil output.
2) Israel's interests. Yes the Neocons sent Netanyahu the infamous "clean break" paper, but it was full of holes. Iraq was not an imminent threat to Israel and the Israeli put Iraq years, even decades away from effective WMD. If this was done to serve Israel's interests, it was only in the perfervid imaginings of AIPAC, not the bulk of the US Jewish community or for that matter Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. AIPAC is a nasty, dangerous organisation, whose shills attack anyone who criticises Israel -- but I would add that no one is doing more damage to Israel's standing in the US.
3) Weapons of Mass Destruction. Well we know the story here, most of it. But the unmade point is that even assuming, arguendo, that Saddam had some WMD, the broad view was that the program had to be tiny and very unadvanced and years from effectiveness. in hindsight he had none, but even in foresight the WMD if they existed were not a real threat.
4) Spreading Democracy. First this was not a justification given a priori by the Bushies. Second, anyone who had seen the evidence of Algeria, etc. would be aware that democracy in the Middle East tend to lead to the election of Islamicists. We can criticise western support for authoritarian rulers in the middle East from Morrocco to Egypt, but on the evidence democratically elected governments are not that attractive either.
5) Ending Sunni oppression of Shiites/Kurds. This is a funny one -- Chirac is on the record as having warned Bush that he was just playing into the hands of the Iranians, and indeed Western tolerance of Saddam had been because he was a counterweight to Tehran. Meanwhile the US key regional ally, Turkey saw Kurdish seperatism as a real threat. Given the cynsicism of the Bushies, and they Islamophobic tendancies the whole argument is surprising -- moreover, the Saudi sponsors of Bush are very orthodox Sunnis.
6) military/industrial complex. But those are small potatoes compared to the money that would be made by the defense contractors and the rest of the war industry. Military hardware and munnitions have to be used before the expiration date expires and the industry needs to be making replacements in order to stay in business.
7) Al Quaeda link -- always was complete nonsense
8) Oedipal complex of GWB. Seems far fetched at first, but, Trying to bring the "rapture", that is beginning to loom like a "maybe". Bush and his Cabinet's desire to "finish the job" daddy supposedly "bungled"
The harder you look at this whole mess, the harder it is to find any sensible reason for the Iraq invasion. In fact I am pretty sure that no substantive reason was ever articulated for going into Iraq, if it had it would have been submitted to ruthless analysis and the Invasion could not have happened.
It is the very lack of any intelligible rationale or objective that lies at the heart of the fiasco and tragedy that is the Iraq war. Had there been one, then the war might not have taken place, or when it did take place the post-war plan would have been in place to achieve the stated objective.
The point I am trying to make is that there really seems to have been no hard rationale advanced, and the lack of a rationale drove the lack of hard analysis and the absence of any clear articulated objectives, which in turn drove three things:
(1) a failure to properly examine the case for war, since there was no articulated case to examine (and a lot of lies about a non-case); (2) the need to make the war seem cheap in terms of men and material, since articulating a rationale and objectives would have led to a cost benefit analysis that would have collapsed in the face of no clear benefit for a high-cost war; (3) no post war planning, since there were no objectives to plan to achieve.
Put bluntly, these guys are bozos.
Heh, come on man, there is definitly "many" reasons Bushco. pushed for war. Not just "A" reason, many different mea culpa are valid, including the ones you disregard above.
Tenet's mea culpa makes me want to puke. Leading up to the war, there were a number of courageous State Department officials who resigned in protest rather than participate in this sham of a case for war that was being sold to the American people.
They gave up careers and pensions for what they believed, and got brief mention in some of the press. That took guts. Those actions were based on deeply held principles. I pray that no one will buy this self-serving book.
Tenet was one of the few people in a position to really wake up Americans to the realities of the day, and he chose not to.
The bigger issue with this war is the absence of any clear reason or rationale -- there is actually no straight reason that you can put your finger on and say, this is why the Bush Administration went to war. Let's look at some of the advanced reasons:
1) Oil: it is fair to say that if Iraq had no oil, and was not in the biggest oil producing region in the world, both Gulf wars would never have taken place. The world has tolerated numerous invasions and oppresive governments in other places that have no oil -- and still does, Samuel Doe, Robert Mugabe, et al. Oil and or money from contracts, particularly Halliburton/KBR. The Energy Task Force docs that did get released showed that they were intent on divvying up Iraq's oil fields. The "no bid" contracts are a no-brainer. Hell, Halliburton had been doing business with Iraq, Iran, and Libya through "foreign subsidiaries" for years.
Indeed, Iraq in the Neocon's fantasy world would have left OPEC and its production ceilings, a disaster for the major oil companies. Only the incompetence of the Bush adminstration has caused the opposite result, actually lowering Iraqi oil output.
2) Israel's interests. Yes the Neocons sent Netanyahu the infamous "clean break" paper, but it was full of holes. Iraq was not an imminent threat to Israel and the Israeli put Iraq years, even decades away from effective WMD. If this was done to serve Israel's interests, it was only in the perfervid imaginings of AIPAC, not the bulk of the US Jewish community or for that matter Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. AIPAC is a nasty, dangerous organisation, whose shills attack anyone who criticises Israel -- but I would add that no one is doing more damage to Israel's standing in the US.
3) Weapons of Mass Destruction. Well we know the story here, most of it. But the unmade point is that even assuming, arguendo, that Saddam had some WMD, the broad view was that the program had to be tiny and very unadvanced and years from effectiveness. in hindsight he had none, but even in foresight the WMD if they existed were not a real threat.
4) Spreading Democracy. First this was not a justification given a priori by the Bushies. Second, anyone who had seen the evidence of Algeria, etc. would be aware that democracy in the Middle East tend to lead to the election of Islamicists. We can criticise western support for authoritarian rulers in the middle East from Morrocco to Egypt, but on the evidence democratically elected governments are not that attractive either.
5) Ending Sunni oppression of Shiites/Kurds. This is a funny one -- Chirac is on the record as having warned Bush that he was just playing into the hands of the Iranians, and indeed Western tolerance of Saddam had been because he was a counterweight to Tehran. Meanwhile the US key regional ally, Turkey saw Kurdish seperatism as a real threat. Given the cynsicism of the Bushies, and they Islamophobic tendancies the whole argument is surprising -- moreover, the Saudi sponsors of Bush are very orthodox Sunnis.
6) military/industrial complex. But those are small potatoes compared to the money that would be made by the defense contractors and the rest of the war industry. Military hardware and munnitions have to be used before the expiration date expires and the industry needs to be making replacements in order to stay in business.
7) Al Quaeda link -- always was complete nonsense
8) Oedipal complex of GWB. Seems far fetched at first, but, Trying to bring the "rapture", that is beginning to loom like a "maybe". Bush and his Cabinet's desire to "finish the job" daddy supposedly "bungled"
The harder you look at this whole mess, the harder it is to find any sensible reason for the Iraq invasion. In fact I am pretty sure that no substantive reason was ever articulated for going into Iraq, if it had it would have been submitted to ruthless analysis and the Invasion could not have happened.
It is the very lack of any intelligible rationale or objective that lies at the heart of the fiasco and tragedy that is the Iraq war. Had there been one, then the war might not have taken place, or when it did take place the post-war plan would have been in place to achieve the stated objective.
The point I am trying to make is that there really seems to have been no hard rationale advanced, and the lack of a rationale drove the lack of hard analysis and the absence of any clear articulated objectives, which in turn drove three things:
(1) a failure to properly examine the case for war, since there was no articulated case to examine (and a lot of lies about a non-case); (2) the need to make the war seem cheap in terms of men and material, since articulating a rationale and objectives would have led to a cost benefit analysis that would have collapsed in the face of no clear benefit for a high-cost war; (3) no post war planning, since there were no objectives to plan to achieve.
Put bluntly, these guys are bozos.
Great thread. Awesome pwnage. :laugh:
--------------------
Bush Apologists of America (BAA): pulling the wool over their own eyes since 1980
--------------------
Bush Apologists of America (BAA): pulling the wool over their own eyes since 1980
There's a huge difference between someone claiming that Saddam did NOT have WMD and someone doubting the certainty that Saddam had WMD.
ColdFusion718
Diamond Member
- Mar 4, 2000
- 3,496
- 9
- 81
There was, outside the Bush administration, no general consensus that Saddam had WMD's nor an active nuclear program.....in fact, most agencies had discredited both "theories" prior to Bush engaging in the Iraq war. And despite Cheney's continued assertions that Saddam and Al Queda were connected (and he continues that charade to this day), that has been thoroughly discredited, too.
Why the leap? Easy......but putting all the blame on Bush isn't quite correct. It's more how Bush has chosen to acquire information, who he's decided to depend upon for information and who he's chosen to ignore.....that's what smacks of what's really wrong with this administration.
Some points:
1. New Orleans. The great American city was decimated by Hurricane Katrina, and Bush's team was slow to react, and inept in its actions. Just think how the billions we're spending on the unnecessary Iraqi war could be used to restore New Orleans to greatness. If it doesn't make your blood boil, nothing will.
2. Bush lives in a self-imposed state of ignorance, refusing to read newspapers and instead relying on advisers and his cabinet to make him aware of important matters. All of which makes the next point so infuriating....
3. Bush's inner circle, perhaps most frequently his foreign policy team, have consistently let him and the entire country down. They convinced Bush and much of the nation that Iraq would welcome US troops with open arms and ignored the advice of true experts on the Middle East who warned of the possibility of violent resistance or even civil war. The administration continued to draw connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden or WMD, even after sufficient evidence was delivered to them contradicting the claims.
4. Bush and his "experts" failed to understand they were giving Al Qaeda exactly what it wanted by jumping straight into cowboy justice to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush fulfilled the dreams of many extremists by entering two Muslim countries as an aggressor, blindly following the script written by Osama bin Laden himself.
5. Bush has authorized illegal government spying on American people. From wiretapping to phone record collection to postal mail intervention, the NSA has used Bush's approval to spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant. In 2006, a U.S. District Court judge called the wiretapping unconstitutional.
6. Bush's environmental record is shameful. From advocating drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the name of "national security" to pushing to expand the logging of national forests to the undermining of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, Bush has been called the most anti-environmental US president in history by many scientists and nature advocates.
7. Bush's financial mismanagement is now legendary. Combine Bush's squandering of the budget surpluses he inherited from the Clinton administration with Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and big business, and the ever-growing costs of Bush's unnecessary Iraq war and you have a recipe for disaster. But since that disaster won't hit us until our kids and grandkids have to clean up the mess, it's OK, right?
8. Bush's frequent, careless throwing around of the terms "evil" and "evil-doers" to describe virtually anyone who opposes the U.S. embarrasses this country and illustrates his intolerance of those who don't share his beliefs. It's been reported that his mother, Barbara Bush, turned to the reverend Billy Graham to convince her son that it was wrong to proclaim anyone who didn't accept Christ as bound for Hell. George W. Bush has since guarded his comments on religion, but his simple-minded branding of this country's enemies as evil belie his religious fanaticism.
9. Bush cannot be blamed for much of the world hating America. But instead of taking action to tear down the stereotypes our global critics have of us, Bush embodies them and solidifies them. His use of false information to win support for a war, disregard for his own country's less fortunate (point 1), ignorance of world events (point 2), reliance on inept advisers (point 3), bullheaded playing the world's cowboy (point 4), disrespect for individual rights (point 5), aggression toward the environment (point 6), financial irresponsibility (point 7), and religious fanaticism (point 8) all add up to a portrait of Americans no reasonable world citizen could admire.
Why the leap? Easy......but putting all the blame on Bush isn't quite correct. It's more how Bush has chosen to acquire information, who he's decided to depend upon for information and who he's chosen to ignore.....that's what smacks of what's really wrong with this administration.
Some points:
1. New Orleans. The great American city was decimated by Hurricane Katrina, and Bush's team was slow to react, and inept in its actions. Just think how the billions we're spending on the unnecessary Iraqi war could be used to restore New Orleans to greatness. If it doesn't make your blood boil, nothing will.
2. Bush lives in a self-imposed state of ignorance, refusing to read newspapers and instead relying on advisers and his cabinet to make him aware of important matters. All of which makes the next point so infuriating....
3. Bush's inner circle, perhaps most frequently his foreign policy team, have consistently let him and the entire country down. They convinced Bush and much of the nation that Iraq would welcome US troops with open arms and ignored the advice of true experts on the Middle East who warned of the possibility of violent resistance or even civil war. The administration continued to draw connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden or WMD, even after sufficient evidence was delivered to them contradicting the claims.
4. Bush and his "experts" failed to understand they were giving Al Qaeda exactly what it wanted by jumping straight into cowboy justice to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush fulfilled the dreams of many extremists by entering two Muslim countries as an aggressor, blindly following the script written by Osama bin Laden himself.
5. Bush has authorized illegal government spying on American people. From wiretapping to phone record collection to postal mail intervention, the NSA has used Bush's approval to spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant. In 2006, a U.S. District Court judge called the wiretapping unconstitutional.
6. Bush's environmental record is shameful. From advocating drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the name of "national security" to pushing to expand the logging of national forests to the undermining of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, Bush has been called the most anti-environmental US president in history by many scientists and nature advocates.
7. Bush's financial mismanagement is now legendary. Combine Bush's squandering of the budget surpluses he inherited from the Clinton administration with Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and big business, and the ever-growing costs of Bush's unnecessary Iraq war and you have a recipe for disaster. But since that disaster won't hit us until our kids and grandkids have to clean up the mess, it's OK, right?
8. Bush's frequent, careless throwing around of the terms "evil" and "evil-doers" to describe virtually anyone who opposes the U.S. embarrasses this country and illustrates his intolerance of those who don't share his beliefs. It's been reported that his mother, Barbara Bush, turned to the reverend Billy Graham to convince her son that it was wrong to proclaim anyone who didn't accept Christ as bound for Hell. George W. Bush has since guarded his comments on religion, but his simple-minded branding of this country's enemies as evil belie his religious fanaticism.
9. Bush cannot be blamed for much of the world hating America. But instead of taking action to tear down the stereotypes our global critics have of us, Bush embodies them and solidifies them. His use of false information to win support for a war, disregard for his own country's less fortunate (point 1), ignorance of world events (point 2), reliance on inept advisers (point 3), bullheaded playing the world's cowboy (point 4), disrespect for individual rights (point 5), aggression toward the environment (point 6), financial irresponsibility (point 7), and religious fanaticism (point 8) all add up to a portrait of Americans no reasonable world citizen could admire.
Bowfinger
Lifer
- Nov 17, 2002
- 15,776
- 392
- 126
It appears the Bush faithful have run out of diversions and rationalizations (at least for this round). I just wondered if any of them has the integrity and independence of thought to acknowledge that yes, the Bush administration did intentionally mislead us with respect to Iraq, i.e., that they lied?
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