Three Cheers for the Bush Doctrine / What Bush Got Right

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learn2kneel

War Child
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These are headline stories on the Time and Newsweek magazine I got today. Apparently, both magzines have changed (or refined) their views on the Iraq War, and are coming to the conclusion that perhaps Bush was right. I took some quotes from the articles that I thought summed them up pretty well.

TIME

"Change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq."

Bush "may have been right" - Daniel Shorr (a critic of Bush's foreign policy)

"I was cynical of Iraq. but when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world....The Berlin wall has fallen. We can see that" - Lebanese leader Walid Jumblatt

"it was the America's overthrow of Sadaam's republic of fear that gave to the Iraqi people space and air and the very possibilty of expressing courage."

"It was not people power that set this in motion. It was American power. People power followed"

"Turns out critics, liberal and "realist' got the Arab street wrong....its (Iraqi and Lebanon's) leaders now openly point to American example and American intervention as having provided the opening for this first tentative venture in freedom."

NEWSWEEK

"Across New York, L.A., and Chicago--and probably Europe and Asia as well--people are nervously asking themselves a question: 'Could Bush possibly have been right?' The short answer is yes. Whether or not Bush deserves credit for everything that is happening in the Middle East, he has been fundamentally right about some big things."
--this quote above somes up the article nicely--

(Sidenote - none of these quotes are not taken out of context)


The Time aticle shows that even Jon Stewart is questioning his view on Bush and the Iraq War. What are your thoughts on these new developments.
 
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I think that all of these organisations are opportunistic ~ there have been significant changes but these do not mean that everything has been vindicated. I have held the opinion that the liberation of Iraq would be a catalyst for great change in the ME and it appears to be, these clowns play up whatever side of the story sells the most papers or gets the most jokes ~ it will be more interesting to read textbooks 30 years from now on the matter.
 
The newsweek article mentions that the way we look back on these events will be determined by the success of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, "if they are thriving countries with modern political and economic systems, America will be honored and respected--and all talk of anit-American terror will have dissipated considerably." It also mentions America will be the blame if the countries are chaosed and troubled but for now it says that "the signs of bush's second term are heartening"
 
Everyone here is familiar with my pessimism about the Middle East and democracy, but, hey, I'll be thrilled to be wrong about this. I hate dictatorships as much as anyone; it's not that I like these authoritarian governments, far from it, they are f:censored:d up. If indeed these governments and unjust social structures aren't as entrenched as I've thought and they are on their way to getting their asses kicked out of there I certainly won't complain. I'm still opposed to Bush's domestic policies so I won't be changing my voting habits anytime soon, but I'd be delighted if a few really good democracies developed over there. Maybe a cure for pessimism has been invented! Nothing wrong with that.
 
I don't think anyone here is going to say that the fall of Saddam was a bad thing, but the debate is heated on whether the lives costed to accomplish it - and the reasons for going in there - were worth it. I would only hope that the most cynical over the effort are in fact wrong, and we succeed in establishing a peaceful civilization. Whatever the gripe about invading Iraq - that's something we can't exactly take back. It's already been done, and the president does not have a time machine. I think whether or not we supported the invasion should have little to no influence on whether or not we can support a new Iraq.
 
Macfistowannabe said:
I don't think anyone here is going to say that the fall of Saddam was a bad thing, but the debate is heated on whether the lives costed to accomplish it - and the reasons for going in there - were worth it. I would only hope that the most cynical over the effort are in fact wrong, and we succeed in establishing a peaceful civilization. Whatever the gripe about invading Iraq - that's something we can't exactly take back. It's already been done, and the president does not have a time machine. I think whether or not we supported the invasion should have little to no influence on whether or not we can support a new Iraq.

I agree. The invasion is a done deal, we have to finish what we started. I opposed the invasion in 2003, but if democracy really takes hold in Iraq then the whole area will be under all sorts of pressure to at least liberalize their human rights situations, if not grant outright democracy, and that's a very positive development. Now if the Saudis would just let women vote.............there are some very brave sisters in that country who've been raising hell about giving women basic rights, more power to them. At any rate this is certainly a wonderful development and I'm pleased. This could really really make the world a safer place because the forces of democracy will kick the asses of those :censored: terrorists in Iraq and they won't have any more power. Here's hoping....................
 
Every day we are "over there," more Iraqis and Americans die unnecesarily because of "our" actions; that wasn't wrong only two years ago.
The primary "terrorists in Iraq" are the invaders and their puppets. People defending themselves against occupiers are not terrorists. (not necessarily saying all the resisters are not terrorists or using terrorist tacticw
If, for example, I was in favor of keeping Terry Schiavo on her food (which I am not), I would not accept the logic (as none of her supporters do today) that "Well, she's already off the tube now, so deal with it."
love, Anu
 
Anu said:
Every day we are "over there," more Iraqis and Americans die unnecesarily because of "our" actions; that wasn't wrong only two years ago.
The primary "terrorists in Iraq" are the invaders and their puppets. People defending themselves against occupiers are not terrorists. (not necessarily saying all the resisters are not terrorists or using terrorist tacticw
If, for example, I was in favor of keeping Terry Schiavo on her food (which I am not), I would not accept the logic (as none of her supporters do today) that "Well, she's already off the tube now, so deal with it."
love, Anu

These statements don't really apply to the article and don't make that much sense to me. Your saying that if you disagreed with the war two years ago that because it's already happened doesn't make it right. (I had to reread the analogy a few times to even get that).
The point is that democracy is spreading all over the middle east because of Bush's actions in Iraq. In Lebanon, Egypt, Syria - the steps are being taken towards freedom and democracy, and the countries are citing America's involvement as the reason for this. TIME and NEWSWEEK are saying that this proves that Bush was right when he went into Iraq and that the Bush Doctrine is starting to work. Iraq as a whole are not defending themselves against America, they and other Middle eastern countries are beginning to embrace their freedom. If you still think by doing this America are acting as terrorists, I'd like to know why? And instead of thinking about how many people died in the war, think about how many people will be able to live and live free because of the war.
 
Instead of concentrating only on how many peopled died in the war look at how many were dying in the peace.
 
i was listening to a radio program where a man from iraq who fled saddams regime was telling this college student against the war that sure there will be bloodshed during the war. but there was much more bloodshed during saddams reign and there wouldve continued to be more if he was left in power. and after reading about the iraq un oil for food scandal. im convinced that after 16 resolutions, the us needed to do something and gave saddam 48 hours to leave iraq peacefully. bush gave the un every opportunity to help and get this done. but they couldnt because kofi and his son and france and germany were benefitting from the oil for food scandal. bush eventually did get un consent for the war, something most people forget to mention. for every person criticzing the war, there are thousands of decent law abiding muslims in the middle east who welcome the us's intervention in iraq. ill take that iraqis guys opinion over the war more to heart than some brainwashed liberal college student who hasnt experinced anything like living under that horrible regime. we are not invaders....we are liberators. sure bush made a mistake and went in because of wmds. but that was the info given from russian and english intelligence. if theyre intelligence had turned out to be right, and bush had done nothing and not preempted it, who knows what wouldve happened?? im sure liberation in iraq and afghanistan is something that bono and many would have to applaud. even if it wasnt gone about in the way they wouldve liked. i also think that some people let their hatred of bush or america get in the way of things sometimes. america does more for tthe whole world than all other countries combined. was the hatred for america and bush like this for clinton when clinton bombed baghdad in 98 with out un consent to get peoples minds off his affair with lewinsky? if so i dont remember it. i guess because a democrat was president. i also wonder if all this had happened under clinton, would everyone be hating him like they do bush? wait, it wouldnt have happened because we didnt do anything after the first 93 wtc attack that happened with my sister in the building, or after the uss cole was bombed.

im not looking to argue with anyone here or put anyones ideas down...to each his own.
 
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A_Wanderer said:
Instead of concentrating only on how many peopled died in the war look at how many were dying in the peace.
the war victims will pass that number before you know it.
 
Really, all those hundreds of thousands of bodies dug up from the desert sands and the other hundreds of thousands who died under Saddam's corruption of sanctions will be beaten at war victim figures that stand at around 20,000 right now.
 
you aren't counting the civilian death toll apparently, or using twisted figures. there have been over 100,000 of them in this unnecessary war. bush is lucky to be re-elected, and it would not have happened without all the war-mongers in this country.
 
No, you are citing a twisted figure used in a lancet survey that applied an epidemilogical statistic method to war casualties and did a cluster survey of deaths that gave extremely far out results, the 95% CI of that survey was 8000 to 195,000 ~ the survey was 95% sure that casualties were between 8,000 and 195,000, the 100,000 figure was announced by just splitting the difference. Even the upper band of that inflated set of figures is less than those murdered by Saddam.

Check out these links for more.

www.iraqbodycount.net

www.massgraves.info

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=qw11133930628B262

http://www.kurdishmedia.com/news.asp?id=6596

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108887/

Read the last article, it outlines the problems with the Lancet survey which appears to have become an article of faith in certain circles.
 
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Iraqi Lawmakers Demand Apology From U.S.


By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi lawmakers adjourned in protest Tuesday and demanded an apology after a Shiite legislator linked to a radical anti-American cleric tearfully said he was handcuffed and humiliated at a U.S. checkpoint.
 
A_Wanderer said:
No, you are citing a twisted figure used in a lancet survey that applied an epidemilogical statistic method to war casualties and did a cluster survey of deaths that gave extremely far out results, the 95% CI of that survey was 8000 to 195,000 ~ the survey was 95% sure that casualties were between 8,000 and 195,000, the 100,000 figure was announced by just splitting the difference. Even the upper band of that inflated set of figures is less than those murdered by Saddam.

Check out these links for more.

www.iraqbodycount.net

www.massgraves.info

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=qw11133930628B262

http://www.kurdishmedia.com/news.asp?id=6596

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108887/

Read the last article, it outlines the problems with the Lancet survey which appears to have become an article of faith in certain circles.


I've read those and unfortunately, while the Lancet study has certain defficiencies, it's still a study based on a sample of households in 33 neighbourhoods. Whiel the CI is large, there's no reason to suggest that the numbers are "inflated". A large CI does not eliminate the likelyhood of the mean falling in towards the middle of the curve, as the scientists have reported.

The other sources are not studies. They are simply observations and because of their simple counting criteria, they lack all the information not reported and thus it loses huge amounts of data. That includes the unidentified/unhospitalized and the bodies that never made it to a morgue and a million other scenarios. It's the same problem with official crime stats. They only count reported crime (which is about 30%). These sites, in particular IBC, loses huge amounts of data. The Lancet study provides insight into the missing data.

Most importantly, the US has only been in Iraq for 2 years. Saddam was in power for 2 decades. Already the numbers are beginning to become comparable. And the Lancet Study was published in october 2004. The death toll has only climbed since. And according to the BBC, the violent death rate continues to climb and is already higher than before the war.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mi...ast/3962969.stm

Sure the study has limitations, but they come nowhere near the massive limitation of simple counting.

Jon
 
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Haha that cartoon is so true! Some of our equipment is in horrid condition while a lot of our leadership has all the comforts they can get.
 
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