I could've sworn I heard something in the news about how the U.S. got a BIG ol' warning two months prior to 9/11 that was ignored.
There are some that are opposed to the administration politically that claim they ignored it, but there is no evidence that the FBI, CIA and the rest of the US defense establishment suddenly stopped the work they had been doing in trying to find members of Al Quada and prevent them from entering the country or identify where they were.
But I thought you just said they hadn't been. Clinton failed to stop Bin Laden, remember? Now you're saying he and others did? I'm confused
No, I said they were unsuccessful in capturing or killing Bin Ladin or in doing much damage to Al Quada, relative to the Bush administration. I never said they were not making an effort to do that though. Understand?
And how do we know they weren't trying to do that? Maybe they were and faced some of the same difficulties that you claim the Bush administration faced.
I didn't say they weren't and yes they certainly experienced the same difficulties anyone has in trying to catch terrorist who hide among the civilian population.
The big difference is that Bush took much more decisive action by invading Afghanistan and removing Al Quada's biggest supporters, the Taliban from power there as well as destroying much of Al quada's base of operations there.
But they're still out there and still a threat, right? And some of them did go back to Afghanistan, too. They may not be ruling the way they once were, but they're still there, and still scaring people.
And didn't we help put the Taliban in power?
What remained of the Taliban fled across the border into Pakistan into ungoverned tribal area's. This became a safe haven as the US did not want to cause a disruption in Pakistan politically by going across the border into Pakistan. The US has worked with Pakistan to get them to retake these tribal area's and deny the Taliban their safe haven there.
The Taliban were able to rebuild some of its forces and then headed back into Afghanistan to cause trouble which is why the violence levels starting increasing in Afghanistan in 2006 after having been relatively low for several years.
The Taliban was formed in 1993-1994 along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area. They had aid from Pakistan because Pakistan wanted to use them to counter elements that became the Northern Alliance because it felt they were pro-Indian and a potential threat to its security.
The United States had nothing to do with the formation of the Taliban. All US aid to Afghanistan had stopped 5 years earlier when the Russians finally withdrew from the country.
And of course, he's the only leader that's ever done that, right?
SADDAM is the only leader that has engaged in unprovoked invasions or large assualts on 4 different countries in the last 30 years. These invasions and attacks also took place in an area of the world that is vital to global energy supply and the global economy. Saddam is the only leader that used WMD on a massive scale in recent times. Having WMD is one thing, but it becomes a far more dangerous situation when a leader is willing to actually use it, especially so often.
Didn't we give weapons to Iraq in the '80s? Why is it okay for us to give another country weapons to use, but heaven forbid they make their own? It can't be fear that they'll trade with unsavory folk, 'cause the same danger would be apparent if they get weapons from us instead of make their own
The United States did NOT give Iraq or any other country WMD. In fact, the United States did not even give Iraq conventional weapons in the 1980s. Nearly all of Iraq's conventional weapons came from the Soviet Union. Saddam's Iraq was a client state of the Soviet Union. The Soviets had thousands of military advisors and trainers in Iraq year during the 1980s helping the Iraqi military.
The United States did give Iraq Trucks, transport helicopters, computers, as well as money to buy food during the 1980s. It also gave Iraq intelligence on the Iranian military. But it did NOT supply Iraq with conventional or unconventional weapons in the 1980s. Iraq got the majority of its weapons as well as training for its military from the Soviet Union.
(then of course there's the whole issue of why we get to have weapons of mass destruction and nobody else can, but that's a whole other topic).
All the permanent members of the UN Security Council have nuclear weapons and the United States accepts this currently. It is a legacy of the Cold War. The US and international communities objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and WMD to other countries while at the same time gradually reducing its stock pile of nuclear weapons. France and the United Kingdom have made unilateral cuts to their nuclear stockpiles and the Russians and the United States have negotiated treaties to reduce their stock piles. The goal is to have currently nuclear armed countries reduce their stock piles while at the same time preventing other countries from obtaining nuclear weapons. This is the goal of the non-poliferation treaty or NPT.
When it comes to biological or chemical weapons, the United States already got rid or dismantled its stock piles many years ago. These are the types of WMD that Saddam had manufactured and used in the past and the US and international community were concerned Saddam either had re-armed or would be able to re-arm with such weapons given the collapse the sanctions and weapons embargo against Iraq and Saddam's failure to completely verifiably disarm of all WMD in front of UN inspection teams.
North Korea has these same issues, too, and I don't hear anyone talk about invading them.
There are several differences between North Korea and Saddam's Iraq:
1. Saddam's Iraq has invaded and launched large scale attacks, unprovoked, against 4 independent counties. North Korea has not done anything like this except for the Korean war 70 years ago, which given that Korea had just been recently divided could be regarded as an internal conflict or civil war, not just a conflict between large foreign powers.
The Korean pennisula has been relatively peaceful for 67 years with regards to war or major conflict.
2. Saddam's Iraq is located in a part of the world that is vital to global energy supply and the global economy. Saddam's close proximity allowed him to potentially sieze or sabotage energy supply that is vital to the rest of the world. North Korea is not located in area where it could threatened something that is so valuable to the rest of the planet.
3. While the North Korean's have been rather passive in their behavior since the end of the Korean war relative to someone like Saddam, it is true that the country is armed to the teeth. North Korea has the worlds second largest collection of artillery, much of it placed on the DMZ with the south. Thousands of artillery pieces on the northern side of the border are in easy range of Seoul South Korea which has a metropolitan population of 10 million people. Were talking only 30 to 40 miles. So any war that would occur today on the Korean pennisula would start off with millions of people being in the crossfire. This unique situation does not exist anywhere else in the world and was one of the chief reasons the Clinton administration was detered from taking military action in 1994 against North Korea's nuclear program.
In addition, North Korea has chemical and biological weapons stockpiles that they can use with their artillery. Then there is the fact that now they do have nuclear weapons which could be placed on ballistic missiles to hit other places in Asia like Japan.
With Saddam's Iraq in 2003, the goal was to remove the more limited stockpiles he had, but more importantly to prevent him from rebuilding the size and type of forces he had before he invaded Kuwait in 1990.
One of the reasons to remove Saddam in 2003 was to prevent him from building up an arsonal like North Korea has today which in many ways is now a deterent to the international community in terms of using force because of the large cost that would be involved.
Fortunately, North Korea has not engaged in the types of aggression that Saddam did while he was in power, which makes North Korea much less of a threat despite their possession of a large military force and WMD. North Korea is also bordered by 3 countries with large military forces, South Korea, China, and Russia. North Korea is also not in an area that is vital to global energy supply like Saddam's Iraq. Saddam's Iraq was bordered by multiple countries that were relatively weak from a military perspective, relative to Saddam's Iraq.
To sum up, its consistent aggressive behavior
+ the possession of large military forces and WMD that made Saddam's Iraq a threat that eventually had to be removed. North Korea does not have the consistent aggressive behavior part of the equation. It has not invaded another country in 70 years. This is the big difference with Saddam. North Korea has also not used WMD against a foreign country like Saddam has. Finally, the area of the world that Saddam's Iraq is located in is very valuable to the global economy but also very vulnerable given the geo-military-political situation.
Well, if that's the case, we got Saddam out of power, so...tell me again why we stuck around?
To rebuild the country from 24 years of Saddam's rule to help build a stable government that was not a threat to its neighbors as Saddam's Iraq had been. To have abandoned the country to chaos and allow a new dictator to come to power in Iraq that could potentially threaten the Persian Gulf again would have been a mistake. Removing Saddam was a necessity, but so was replacing his regime with one that was not a threat to its neighbors as Saddam's regime had been.
Read answers above. I'm sorry, the whole thing just doesn't make sense to me. We're friends with Saddam. We supply Iraq with weapons. Then suddenly we don't want Iraq to have weapons anymore, we're mad at Saddam, and now he's an enemy and now he needs to be brought down and now we need to invade the country.
Well, read my answers above. The United States was never "friends" with Saddam, although it did not want to see him lose the Iran/Iraq war and have Iranian troops overruning the country with a clear path towards Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and much of the worlds oil supply. In addition, that time, Saddam had not invaded and attacked Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. When Saddam did this, this dramatically changed the nature of the threat the world was dealing with and Saddam had to be either removed or somehow contained.
The United States did not supply Iraq with weapons. The United States and the international community put stiff sanctions and a weapons embargo on Saddam following the 1991 Gulf War which resulted from his unprovoked invasion of Kuwait. At that time Saddam had to be either removed or somehow contained. The US and international community went with containment because it was less costly and no one believed at the time Saddam would still be in power 5 years later. But after 12 long years of UN inspections, sanctions, and bombing by US aircraft and missiles, Saddam not only had successfully remained in power, but removed the UN inspectors from his country and had seen the sanctions and weapons embargo regime designed to contain him crumble. The collapse of containment left only one option for dealing with Saddam, regime change.
Plus, you know, there were other countries that didn't like the way the Bush administration handled things. Does that mean, then, they have the right to come in and take out our leader? They may feel we could've use a "regime change".
Iraq was in violation of 17 UN Security Council Resolutions at the time of the invasion in 2003. UN resolution 1441 re-stated and authorized the use of military force against Iraq to enforce the resolutions. All of the resolutions were passed under Chapter VII rules of the United Nations which allow for military force to be used to bring about enforcement. In addition, once Saddam was removed, the UN approved the occupation that followed with resolution 1483.
So this was not some willy nilly, we don't like you, so were going to take you out event. It was done in with the approval of the United Nations and was legal under international law.
Yeah. They're still doing their job. By killing them you turn them into martyrs.
You're the one who said that the U.S. interests here and abroad have been more successfully protected. I'm just watching the news of late and wondering where you get the idea that that's so.
Angela
Its so because the Saddam who posed a huge threat to the world has been removed from power, the Taliban have been removed from power in Afghanistan, Al Quada's base in Afghanistan was destroyed and much of the leadership has been killed or captured. While it is true that fighting with Al Quada and the Taliban is still ongoing, the US is in a far better position against these groups than it was prior to 9/11. Al Quada and the Taliban have been unsuccessful in attacking the US mainland since 9/11.
. "Selfish and stupid" was another noted right-wing columnist's reaction
