MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
lol, at some point I'll figure out what that means. I'm tired.
61% of historians agree: W. Bush is worst ever
- Thread starter Irvine511
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kellyahern
Blue Crack Supplier
Strongbow said:
How?
He won by a majority in 2004, and now a larger majority thinks he's doing a really crappy job.
the tourist
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Strongbow said:
anitram said:
Three options:
1. Piss off drivers and do nothing.
2. Piss off everyone and make war.
3. Piss off the environmentalists and fucking drill Alaska.
Which one causes the least problems?
Irvine511 said:
Exactly. The risks and consequences of withdrawing are all speculative and debatable. The risks and consequences of doing what we are currently doing are clear: an increasingly destabilized Afghanistan and Pakistan with a newly emboldened and strengthened Al Qaeda, a civil war in Iraq that is now cutting 3 ways-govt, mahdis/iran and sunnis. All are at eachother's throats. The US has paid these Sunnis in the awakening council to not shoot at us. What if the militias step up their offers or we run out of money to give them? They will just as quickly turn back against us like they were last yr. The Mahdi army- Al Sadr has been our friend and then our enemy then our friend and the process has repeated itself I dont know how many damn times. He has killed plenty of US troops and until recently, he was our best buddy. Now he is killing our troops again. There is no rhyme or reason to this policy, our troops can not hold a country that was never meant to be(read history) together, it will not happen. Our troops are the best in the world identifying threats to our country and taking them out. That is what they will do. The surge did reduce violence for about 7 months, now the shit has hit the fan again. The surge has been a failure by its own standards and goals: namely, it was supposed to buy time for the Iraqis to pursue a political solution to their problems and get a stable government with the support and trust of the people in place. This has not even come close to happening and will not happen as long as we stay as their wallet and their crutch, fighting whatever rag tag army is giving them trouble at any given time.
Al Qaeda being in the country is a wild Bush exagerration. Foreign fighters have been estimated by the CIA as comprising only 5% of the problem in Iraq. Those small groups of terrorists can be handled by the Iraqis who do not want them there anymore than we do, and the residual strike force of 20,000 that Congress is proposing can back them up if necesary. The Iraqis know who these people are, they will kick them out when they get their country in order plus, they will have no place there in a stabilized Iraq with no American troops to target. This current vaccum plays right into their hands and they get the added benefit of being able to kill Americans.
All this war has done is squander lives and money with one result:strengthening of Al Qaeda and a real chance of nuclear armed Pakistan falling to them. EVERYONE IN THIS COUNTRY SHOULD BE SCARED SHITLESS BY THE CURRENT STATE OF PAKISTAN! Of course, Bush is going after phantom weapons in Iran and Iraq and completely ignoring the real threats. Same fort the 3 blind mice running for President- Hillary, Obama, McCain. WE NEEDED JOE BIDEN BUT I DIGRESS. Kuwait/Saudi Arabia/Egypt are closer to falling than at any time in our history of alliances with them because they are viewed as tools of the US by an emboldened al qaeda. Egypt has had to adopt more radical Islamic policies to play to extremists who had a serious chance of winning elections if they and their supporters were not satisfied somehow by the government. Look at the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, that is the biggest incubator of terrorism anywhere and Al Qaeda's biggest excuse for existing- no progress, NONE, has been made in 8 yrs at solving that. Saddam had absolutely no capability to threaten Kuwait or any other neighbor in 2003, Condi Rice said as much in 2001. He was not even that strong in 1991-they did not get far into Kuwait and their highly touted '6th strongest army in the world' got run over like a group of boy scouts when we went in. Saddam never had a nuclear weapon and merely experimented with chemical and biological weapons, all of which were comprehensively and verifiably destroyed in the 1990s. We are not safer by any objective standard, our own intelligence community has said as much in many different reports.
AchtungBono
Refugee
I am so sick of people condemming President Bush for his actions over the past 8 years.
I dare each and every one of the bush bashers to walk a foot in his shoes......it's so easy to stand on the sidelines and criticize someone's work without offering solutions themselves.
I would really love to hear what anyone else would have done under the same circumstances that President Bush found himself (and the American people) in.
President Bush is a hero and history will judge him so many years from now.
I dare each and every one of the bush bashers to walk a foot in his shoes......it's so easy to stand on the sidelines and criticize someone's work without offering solutions themselves.
I would really love to hear what anyone else would have done under the same circumstances that President Bush found himself (and the American people) in.
President Bush is a hero and history will judge him so many years from now.
OP
OP
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
AchtungBono said:
i would not have invaded Iraq.
you want more?
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
AchtungBono said:
It's a highly pressured job. I don't envy Bush (or any other president). Dislike or disapprobration of someone's policies should not not be misconstrued as envy.
I would give him some respect for dealing with his alcohol issues. I assume he is a good father. I have no reason to think otherwise. But there the respects stops, frankly.
Bush knew or ought to have known what he was getting himself into. The reality is he was a willing patsy for Cheney and other shadowy figures.
So I think if sympathy cards for effort, as opposed to results, are being given out, he can get in line, join the queue.
Plus, what Irvine said.
AchtungBono said:
Well, I dont think we have to walk in his shoes to criticize him, he knew the unique responsibilities of the job when he put his name out there for it. He came to us, not the other way around. I wish I could have used that line about walking in the President's shoes back when Clinton was President. All of my arguments with my Republican friends would have been over, silly me! Bush's critics are offering plenty of solutions themselves. Read Joe Biden's Iraq plan that he has had since 2005.
Anyone else under the same circumstances argument: I assume you are talking about 9/11. Any president would have invaded Afghanistan and taken out the Taliban government that was harboring Al Qaeda. Bush is the only one who would have used 9/11 as an excuse to further the agenda of the shadowy guys financeguy speaks so well of- Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Krystal by invading Iraq. Iraq was no threat to the US, Condi Rice and Colin Powell said as much before 9/11. Look back to 1998, this has been on the neoconservative wish list for years, and was completely independent of 9/11. That was just a convenient excuse. They have admitted as much. Wolfowitz just flat out said that they were looking for a reason to invade Iraq, and that they just used WMD for 'bureaucratic reasons.' In other words, just to be able to get (semi) cover from Congress for what they knew was an unnecessary war. Bush chose to let himself be a tool for narrow minded interests at a time of very real national tragedy, and in doing so, let Al Qaeda off the hook and has in fact strengthened them. No one else would have done that, mark my words. It is unprecedented. As for his other policies, it is hard to imagine ANY President agreeing to tax cuts in a time of war and massive deficits, listening to phone calls of Americans w/o warrants, ignoring global warming.. the list goes on, but you get the idea. I dont think you care seeing as you are from Israel- you will not be paying back any of the debt yet your country will continue to get OUR hard earned taxpayer money. Some advice: before telling us what to think of our President, tell your government that they are plenty wealthy, economically and militarily, to not have their entire existence subsidized by American taxpayers.
Overall, look at all of the debt he has piled on the United States, how bad our economy is, how broken our military and world standing is and how much stronger Al Qaeda is after 8 years of Bush. Bush is a failure by any objective standard, and history will correctly judge him as such.
U2387 said:
Well, the risk and consequences of the surge according to the Democrats that opposed it were that it would lead to heavier US casualties and heavier Iraqi casualties and a general worsening of the entire situation. But that is not at all what happened. US military casualties have dropped to their lowest rates since 2003 and so have Iraqi civilian casualties. Progress has been made on several key Iraqi government goals such as the new de-bathification law and provincial elections for the fall. The Iraqi economy continues to grow stronger, with per capita GDP now approaching that of Syria. The Iraqi military has vastly improved from where it was just 2 years ago and has been able to conduct some large scale operations largely independent of coalition aid. That is light years ahead of where the Iraqi military was just two years ago.
Al Quada, which kills far more people in Iraq than anywhere else in the world, has been heavily weakened. The United States military has successfully formed alliances and partnerships with former Sunni insurgents who now are ACTIVELY working for the United States military and performing security tasks and providing good intelligence on other insurgents as well as Al Quada. Counterinsurgency and nation building operations of the scale and difficulty of those being done in Iraq take years to successfully complete. It would be foolish to simply abandon the effort based not on conditions on the ground but irrelevent domestic political considerations. In the long run, Iraq is a more important country to US security than Afghanistan ever will be given Iraq's natural resources and its close proximity to much of the planets large energy reserves.
Sure, the consequences of pre-mature withdrawal are speculative and debatable, as are the consequences of doing the same thing in Afghanistan or other security situations, but what your going to be risking in the process is not. Why put in jeopardy all of the progress that the coalition has made in Iraq to date especially given the many other risk to US security? It would be absolutely foolish for the United States to rapidly withdraw from Iraq only to have to come back in later under far worse circumstances. Far better to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan when conditions on the ground warrent such a withdrawal. Both Iraq and Afghanistan will require coalition troops until they have the proper political, security and economic environment in place to handle the problems on their own.
The US has paid the Sunnis in the awakening council's to take on specific task in providing security for their home area's as well as providing intelligence which is vital to any effective counter insurgency effort. The United States is currently spending less on national defense, the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan, as a percentage of GDP than it was in the 1980s on national defense. The amount the United States is actually paying the awakening council's for the entire year is the equilivant of ONE DAY of US military operations in Iraq! Yes, there is always the risk that some of these groups could turn on the US military, but that same problem exist in Afghanistan with the warlords that control the countryside. But the fact remains, the United States can provide more carrots than anyone else in the region and has more sticks to confront those who decide to play on the otherside of the fence. Provided the United States does not waver in its commitment to Iraq, these groups will find it in their best interest to stay with the side that has the most resources to offer them.
A typical example of what happens in any difficult nation building experience, although it would be a mistake to actually regard the Mahdi Army as a friend of the US military. Staying off the streets and not fighting is not the same as actively helping US troops and providing key intelligence as many of the Sunni groups are doing. Its also questionable if Al Sadr has much control of his Mahdi Army anymore which is why you have parts of it not fighting and others engaging in fighting.
Yet that is exactly what they are doing in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Bosnia. Those countries are certainly not any more "meant to be" than Iraq, and have suffered from far worse sectarian violence and REAL Civil Wars.
Even though violence has been up in March and April do to the crack down on some Mahdi Army elements and other militias, casualties are still well below that of 2006 and early 2007.
The Surge has succeeded in dramatically reducing casualty levels on all sides. It has allowed for progress to be made politically on the national level, although not at the worldwind pace Democrats unrealistically expect. At the local level, the progress has been very substantial. Nation Building takes years to succeed, with plenty of setbacks along the way. The Iraqi's are making progress and their military is growing stronger every day and suffers more casualties than the coalition does in combat. So this idea that the United States is in Iraq doing everything for them is complete nonsense.
No its a fact! According to CENTCOM, Al Quada killed 4,000 people in Iraq in 2007. Far more than what they killed in either Pakistan or Afghanistan even if you include people the local Taliban killed in those figures.
5% of the numbers, but they have plenty of allies in the country which boost their overall numbers. The number of foreign fighters in Iraq far exceeds the number of foreign fighters in either Afghanistan or Pakistan. Its much easier to spot foreign Arab fighters in Afghanistan or Pakistan than it is in Iraq.
Except that did has not proven to be the case up to this point. Handling Al Quada in Iraq has required large numbers of coalition troops working with the developing Iraqi military and the civilian population. Provided the United States does not withdraw before the Iraqi's are developed enough to handle their own internal security situation, eventually they will be able to handle such groups on their own.
The mere absence of American troops certainly does not mean Al Quada would not have any place in the country as Afghanistan prior to 2001 shows. The key is not the presense of American troops, but whether Iraq is able to develop the tools necessary to provide for their own internal security and stabilize the country. If the United States withdraw's prematurely, the risk is that Iraq could descend into the chaos that Afghanistan went through in the early 1990s. But the longer the United States remains in country helping to provide security, develop the military, government, and economy, the better the probability gets that Iraq will soon be able to stand on its own.
There is not a vaccum in Iraq right now, but you risk creating one if you withdraw from Iraq prior to the Iraqi's being able to handle their own affairs. Same goes for Afghanistan.
False. The war in Iraq removed the biggest threat to the region, Saddam Hussian. Kuwait is more secure now than it has ever been in decades, but will have a risky future if the United States leaves Iraq in an unfinished state that falls apart. Al Quada has been beaten back in Iraq and has suffered an even worse fate in Afghanistan. Nearly all attacks in Afghanistan are conducted by the local Taliban. Pakistan's internal situation has only been marginally impacted by Iraq if at all.
On the contrary, Bush has gone after the real threats and decisively removed them, with the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan and Saddam out of power in Iraq.
That allegation has been repeated every five years since the 1991 Gulf War. Anti-intervention advocates constantly screamed that Egypt would fall if the United States went to war to remove Saddam from Kuwait.
Just for the record, everyone should realize that Joe Biden voted against the use of military force to remove Saddam's military from Kuwait in 1991. Even the FRENCH sent military forces to remove Saddam from Kuwait in 1991. But Joe Biden did support the war your against in 2003!
Al Quada's rise and development has little to do with the Israeli-Palestianian conflict which had been going on for nearly half a century before Al Quada was even formed.
Not true. In 2003, Saddam had a military of 430,000 troops, 2,800 tanks, over 2,000 armored personal carriers, over 2,000 artillery pieces, 300 combat aircraft, short range ballistic missiles, thousands of unaccounted for stocks of WMD, the technical and industrial capabilities to develop large scale new stocks of WMD, but more importantly, the intention to do so. Although heavily weakened from the 1991 Gulf War and the sanctions which by then had evaporated, it was still one of the largest military forces in the Gulf and the CIA estimated that a determined push by Saddam could still overrun Kuwait, at least temporarily, even with the rapid deployment of US forces and the pre-positioning of equipment in Kuwait. The greater fear now that sanctions and the weapons embargo had fallen apart was that Saddam would be able to soon reconstitute his pre-1991 Gulf War military capabilities and potentially get new advanced conventional and unconventional weapons that would put the military balance even more in his favor than it had been in 1990.
I don't recall anyone in the US government claiming that Saddam was no longer a problem in 2001 and the United States could withdraw its naval, air, and land assets from the region. The containment regime had just started to fall apart at that time, and the necessity of removing Saddam in 2003 came about because containment had failed to achieve its goals and the regime that had existed in the 1990s no longer was there, and was politically impossible to rebuild. Saddam was making Billions of dollars selling oil on the black market, and was now nearly free to start rebuilding his conventional and unconventional military capabilities to a degree he had been unable to before. That is why he had to be removed.
Totally False! Saddam overran ALL Of Kuwait with TWO Republican Guard divisions in 48 hours. The rest of the Republican Guard moved into Kuwait days later. Saddam's military was the 4th largest in the world and had just successfully defeated the Iranian military in the Iran/Iraq War. Had Saddam not made the mistake of stopping in Kuwait, he could have overrun Saudi Arabia as well. The United States ability to enter the region to fight would have been severely compromised. The United States was able to successfully defeat Saddam in the Gulf War, because it was able to deploy over 500,000 troops to Saudi Arabia. The US forces had just benefited from the Reagan military build up of the 1980s, which most Democrats opposed, which gave them qualitative advantages they had not had before over the Iraqi forces. Had the United States not modernized its military in the 1980s and Saddam had kept pushing into Saudi Arabia, the United States would have been faced with no staging area for military operations against Saddam, and would have to fight its way into Saudi Arabia with a military force with average equipment for a war fought a decade or so earlier as opposed to the best technology available. The cost of such a war would be difficult to caculate. The threat and crises was real and the loss of not only Kuwaits oil supply but also Saudi Arabia's back then would have been a disaster. The United States underestimated what Saddam was willing to do at the time, and lucked out when he did not continue into Saudi Arabia.
Merely experimented with Chemical and biological weapons?!?!? There are tens of thousands of Iranian troops and civilians who died from Iraqi Sarin Gas attacks. Tens of Thousands of Kurds also were killed. In fact, there is not another leader in recent history that has used WMD more times than Saddam.
As of November 1998, United Nations Inspectors reported that Saddam had failed to verifiably disarm of 1,000 liters of Anthrax, 500 pounds of mustard gas, 500 pounds of sarin gas, and 20,000 Bio/Chem capable shells. This WMD was never accounted for by Saddam and NONE of it was ever comprehensively or verifiably destroyed in front of UN inspectors as required.
The intelligence community always listed Saddam as a serious threat while he was still in power and now that his regime is gone, that threat has been removed. The Planets energy supply is no longer threatened by one of the largest military forces in the world, with unaccounted for stocks of WMD, and a leader bent on regional and world domination, at least in his mind. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are safer by ever objective standard that exist. There is no entity in Iraq today that can successfully invade and overrun Kuwait as Saddam once did and still threatened to do when he was in power. Provided the United States does not withdraw from Iraq before it is ready, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia will have a secure future ahead of them in regards to Iraq.
As time goes by, few people will be making the arguement that the world would be safer with Saddam still in power in Iraq.
U2387 said:
The Clinton administration considered Iraq to be a threat, and tried to keep the containment regime from falling apart as well as getting Saddam to cooperate, but it failed, and the only policy left was regime change. Bill Clinton himself when on Larry King Live a week before the invasion and state that Bush was doing the right thing. His wife voted for the war, as well as your hero Joe Biden.
Its a liberal fantasy that a single conservative think tank started the Iraq war. The United States had a long and difficult time of dealing with Saddam after the 1991 Gulf War. Many things were tried but failed to solve the situation. The only option that was left was regime change as everything short of that had been tried and failed to produce the results and with the break down of sanctions and the embargo, time was running out.
It was a fact that Iraq had failed to verifiably disarm of all WMD, and that is why even a majority of Democrats voted for the war.
Al Quada was never let off the hook. The US military increased the number of troops in Afghanistan as the Iraq war started.
The United States does benefit from its relationship with Israel and US tax dollars spent on Israel as well as other countries in the region is money well spent, and enhances US security interest. In addition, it is simply false to be saying that that Israel's existence is entirely subsidized by the American taxpayer.
The US National Debt as a percentage of GDP was higher during the Clinton years than it has been under George Bush. Also, the average poverty rate during the Clinton years was also higher than it was under George Bush. GDP growth has been high during the Bush years, although not as high as it was under Clinton. Unemployment on average has actually been lower under Bush. Al Quada was much stronger under Clinton than it has been under Bush and Bush has taken more decisive action to combat threats to the United States than Clinton ever did.
Bush is considered a failure by many who are blinded by political bias and fail to objectively and specifically assess events and put them in their proper context. Its been difficult for many on the left to have been defeated twice by a man they hated before he was even elected. No one knows yet how history will judge Bush, but its safe to say few will be wishing that Saddam was still in power in Iraq and that the Taliban were still in power in Afghanistan. Statistically, his economic record is already one of the best over the past 40 years.
Strongbow said:
I would just point you to quotes by Condi Rice and Colin Powell re: Iraq being able to project power against Kuwait or other neighbors in 2001. That is how we handle that. It is true that Clinton had a policy of regime change, but if you read the Iraq liberation act of 1998, it makes very clear that it is to come from within the country, not through an American invasion. The containment system was working, all those WMD's you say he was stockpiling WERE NOT THERE, never found, understand? The inspections process worked, it was Clinton who pulled the inspectors out and moved toward regime change to fend off challenges from the right. The PNAC Iraq letter, signed by Rumsfeld, Cheney and all the neocons was sent urging Clinton to become tougher on Iraq or have it made into an electoral issue. Clinton, being the poll addict he was, went along. Scott Ritter, the head weapons inspector has said that Iraq was disarmed by 1998, Clinton, not Saddam ended the inspections, in addition to correctly pointing out that any attempts to reconstitute the weapons program would be eminently detectable by intelligence services. You say Iraq maintained the capability to produce these weapons, the industrial capacity. Not true at all, all of that was comprehensively destroyed as well during the 1990s under Ritter. Read about him, he is a former Marine, I have met him, he, like me, is no squishy pacifist, but he does know this war was BS. Attempts to reconstitute the capacity would have been detectable as well. Well, you are just listening to one guy, Ritter, you will respond to me, no doubt. You are just listening to the radical right fringe, however. Why should we listen to Ritter more, he has a political agenda too, you will say. Well, the facts have proven him right and that is a hell of a lot more than you can say. Iraq was nowhere near the biggest threat in the region in 2003, no matter what you think, the facts have proven otherwise. Just look at Pakistan and their nuclear program and how destabilized they are.
As for Clinton saying Bush was doing the right thing to Larry King, he made his position very clear throughout. The President should let the inspectors do their work and that was what Clinton expected Bush to do, and what he was doing at the time. Clinton did not want to believe Bush was lying/gave him the benefit of the doubt here. Bush let the inspectors in after having fought tooth and nail against it, they worked for a few weeks in February and March 2003, during which Clinton was interviewed. At the time, he was doing what he, and other Democrats suggested- having the inspectors comb the place. Benefit of the doubt, no one wants to think your president is acting in bad faith, but that is exactly what he was doing. We know now that Bush never took the inspections process seriously and pulled them out to go to war just before they would have finsihed up and reported that Iraq was clean.
Saddam was a 2bit dictator who could not even handle Iraq. He had all those tanks you talk about, big deal, plenty of other countries had more and they were all outdated and underfunded. Saddam was never going to run down Saudi Arabia, that is laughable. Bush I claimed that he was going to do this, amassing on the border and such, and the St. Petersburg Times took a satellite image showing the border of Kuwait and Saudi completely clear of any of Saddams goons. It was a border dispute with Kuwait stemming from Iran-Iraq tensions, no more, no less.You are talking about equipment that any 3rd world country has, much less Israel, the US or Saudi Arabia. He could have been decisively handled conventionally, and he knew that, and thats why he would never have attempted Kuwait or anything else again. Once more, they got run down like a boy scout troop in 1991, at the height of their 'power' and in the 1980s, fought a new government in Iran to only a stalemate. The 4th strongest Army in the world, they were never, there were some quite dubious claims of 6th at one time, but I just pointed out they have a record of getting run down like boy scout troops. We had 200,000 + troops in Gulf War I, they had over a million. They could not surrender fast enough. It went like this: US, UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, Israel, France, Japan, China... no where near the top 4 or 6 for Saddam, never. Never much of a threat.
We need Iraq for energy? Ever hear of the risk premium? Take a look at the pump, this policy is not working. The war and instability, in addition to demand from India and China has sent it ski high. We dont need any of the middle east for energy, we have plenty of wind, sun, clean coal, etc. Whats left of the oil we need to use can be done more efficently and gotten from the Caspian pipeline, which has significantly more oil than Iran, Saudi, and Iraq combined. We need renewable energy.
And yes, this war was pushed by one think tank, read that 1998 letter and see who got their hands on the trigger 3 years later. Does not take a genius. Congress did not vote for the war, they have not voted to declare war since World War II. This was a symbolic resolution to use force, which Bush could have done anyway. The reason given was WMD and ties to Al Qaeda, neither of which Saddam had, according to our own NIE from September 2006. Bush had them vote in bad faith, and the provision clearly stated that it was because of WMD and Al qaeda, and that in addition, the diplomatic and inspections process was to run its course. This was initiated and executed by Bush. Biden wrote a companion resolution on exhausting diplomatic measures. Bush abused the resolution, and asked for it in bad faith anyway. As for Biden voting against Gulf War I, he did for a good reason- it is not our job to defend Kuwait, and Bush's ambassador gave Saddam the green light on the invasion anyway. Gulf War I was what turned OBL against us, great job, Bush I.
As far as gassing the Iranians, that was done on both sides, Sarin with Iraq and mustard with Iran, in the context of a war. Saddam was on our side during that. In addition, the Kurds were gassed by the Iranians in 1988, the a US Army war college study has confirmed this. In wars, people die. Saddam was no more brutal in this respect than Iran. It was basically a stalemate.
As for nation building being tough, that is no excuse, and not our job with respect to Iraq. Bush's reasons were: WMD and Al Qaeda. The surge has NOT WORKED by its own stated goal: to give the Iraqis time to get a political solution worked out. That has not come close to happening. Of course we can push violence a little lower, we are the best military on the face of the earth, but we can not sustain that indefinitelty, nor should we. OUR MILITARY IS BROKEN, in case you havent read the testimony of our commanders. We have been holding Kosovo, Afghanistan, Bosnia together militarily? No, not at all. Afghanistan is experiencing 2001 level violence, even worse possibly and a federal system, like Biden is proposing for Iraq, was established in the Balkans. They are doing their job and governing, and the region is relatively stable. The US is playing a minor support role, much like the Democrats envision for Iraq. Not one soldier has been killed in 15 years in the Balkans. Contrast that with Iraq. Apples and oranges, pal. Having 10,000 US troops in Bosnia is in no way comparable to our occupying an entire country with 160,000 troops. No way is Al Qaeda the strongest in Iraq, they are strongest around the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and increasingly, in N Africa. The people killing us are mostly Iraqis. As for the awakening councils, they are not serving our interests, they were just killing us 6 months ago, until we showed them the money. You are just trying to sugarcoat an indefensible policy. We have paid them to be on our side in place of actually addressing their problems w/ the govt. When they inevitably get excluded by the Shiites, they will use that money and weaponry to go after them, and then, after us when we step up for the government. Brain dead policy.
Saying Afghanistan has not lost troops due to Iraq is laughable. The special forces task force on Bin Laden was disbanded and its members sent to Iraq in 2003. Other deployments scheduled for Afghanistan were diverted to Iraq. Just google that and countless hits will come up.
Our national security interests are served from our relationship with Israel? You must be living a fantasy. Israel is the main reason the Arab world has declared war on us. We spend a significant amount of our money on aid to Israel, a first world country, thats the point I was making. Why do you think they have so many lobbyists in Congress? For show? No they get something out of it. The USS Liberty incident in 1967, in which Israel killed over 30 of our sailors is what we get for thanks, appartently. This was no accident, as the Israeli airforce had known for days that the Liberty was our ship. They never would have existed if it was not for the United States and our military.
Clinton gave Al Qaeda more attention than the Republicans wanted to in the 1990s. He tripled counterterrorism funding, appointed a cabinet level terrorism czar, stopped the millenium bombings and many other attacks cold, put predator drones in Afghanistan and navy carriers in the Indian ocean aimed at them(which Bush later took away) and made clear in no uncertain terms who would be held responsible for an attack. All while Republicans accused him of wag the dog tactics and of not focusing on the real threat, Iraq. This is all pre-9/11. In the 9 months before 9/11, Bush did nothing, held no meetings on terrorism, ignored repeated warnings that would have been forwarded right to the top under Clinton, Condi Rice had never even heard of Al Qaeda, and Wolfowitz was saying that Bin Laden was no threat. They had it completely backwards, and you know it. To say now that Bush has done more than Clinton is not a valid comparison, as Bush took action after a major homeland attack that would have been avenged the same way by any president. For a valid comparison, do what I just did and look at Clinton and Bush's pre 9/11 terrorism focuses and policies. Those are revealing, my friend.
National debt higher under Clinton? This shows me you are a complete nut!! The budget was balanced and we paid down the debt for 1999-2001. Bush has added more to the debt than from Washington to Clinton combined.
Economy under Bush?? Sure, unemployment has been low by historical standards since 2003's 6.8%, but Clinton had it significantly lower. This was the weakest recovery ever in terms of job and wage growth, most Americans saw no wage gains at all. Clinton created 23 million jobs and had the strongest, longest economic expansion ever. And he balanced the budget, thats a fact. In addition, the housing market busted in 2005, unemployment has risen, consumer spending has fallen and we are headed to a recession. Bush-2 recessions, Clinton-0 in case you were counting.
We spent more on the military as a % if GDP in 1980s. So did we in the 60s, and 50s, 40s. Two words, COLD WAR. That does not mean we are not spending billions of dollars on an unnecessary war now, to the tune of 2 billion per week.
You are simply blind to the fact that Bush has screwed up so bad and there is nothing wrong with holding him to account. You obviously can not see reality, and the least of your problems seems to be having a hero who was handed 3 businesses, ran them into the ground, was a draft dodging, deserting coke head and alcoholic who then ran an entire country into the ground.
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U2387 said:
Taking some quotes out of context or misconstruing them to mean something that they don't is absurd. If Condi Rice and Colin Powell ever said such things, which I doubt, they would simply be wrong. The United States did not bomb Iraq in 1998 because Iraq was not a threat and was unable to project any sort of power against its neighbors. Iraq still had Republican Guard divisions intact from the first Gulf War that were moved all across the country at different times and could have been moved into Kuwait again if Saddam ordered them. The CIA admitted in 1995 that Saddam still could potentially overrun Kuwait, at least temporarily.
The United States did try to remove the regime with elements from within the country, but it became obvious early on that this was impossible. Bill Clinton himself stated that Bush was doing the right thing the week before Bush invaded Iraq, and his wife certainly was not complaining at the time especially since she voted for the war as did Joe Biden.
If the inspections process worked, Saddam would not have still be in violation of 17 UN Security Council resolutions on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Again, UN inspectors said that Saddam failed to account for 1,000 liters of anthrax, 500 pounds of mustard gas, and 500 pounds of Sarin gas that were to be disposed of in a verifiable way as required by the 1991 Gulf War Ceacefire agreement.
The only way the inspections process works is if Saddam cooperates. Saddam stopped cooperating completely in 1998. The inspectors were withdrawn because it was impossible for them to do their job. Airstrikes were tried to bring Saddam back in line, but it failed, and Clinton left the problem of Saddam to the next administration.
I know it does not fit into the liberal fantasy that there were other people besides PNAC that were concerned about Iraq, but its true. From the Pentagon, State Department, Clintons National Security Council as well as the US military, many people in all these departments and groups were very concerned and encouraging stronger action against Saddam. One of Bill Clintons top experts on Iraq, Ken Pollack became and advocate of regime change towards the end of the Clinton administration.
Thats not what Scott Ritter told the United Nations in 1998. In any event, Scott Ritter left that job and went on to make news of a different kind at Burger King.
Intelligence can pick up somethings, sometimes. But the intelligence prior to the 1991 Gulf War showed that Saddam was more than 10 years away from getting a nuclear weapon. When inspectors got their first look after the 1991 Gulf War with Saddam's cooperation, they discovered all kinds of things that they did not even know that Saddam had, including the fact that Saddam was within ONE year, not Ten years of developing a nuclear weapon at that time!
The Facts show that Saddam NEVER verifiably disarmed of all of the WMD as required by the 1991 Gulf War Ceacefire. Saddam never complied with ANY of the 17 UN Security council resolutions passed against him.
Thats absolutely false, and US military planning for the region during the 1990s was primarily based on fighting Saddam in a future war. Can you name another country in the region in 2003 with 430,000 troops, 2,800 tanks, 2,000 Armored Personal Carriers, over 2,000 artillery pieces, 300 combat aircraft, led by leader who had invaded and attacked unprovoked 4 different countries in the region, used WMD more times than any leader in history, was in violation of 17 UN security council resolutions, and had failed to account for thousands of stocks of WMD?
Pakistan did not invade and attack four different countries in the Persian Gulf region just recently. They had not threatened the planets key energy supply with seizure and sabotage. They had not been using WMD in a scale like Iraq was. Pakistan does not border Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
On the contrary, he handled it better than anyone else has, and developed a massive military with the capability to threaten the global economy.
Did Kuwait have more tanks than Iraq? Nope. Did Iran have more tanks than Iraq? Nope. Did Saudi Arabia have more tanks thank Iraq? Nope. None of the countries that border the Persian Gulf had as much military hardware as Iraq did in 2003. It is a big deal especially when your determining Iraq's capacity to cause damage to the region.
Only in the sense that most 3rd world countries have armies, but none of the Gulf States had the size and numbers that Saddam had. Nore did they have the WMD development capacities that Saddam had, as well as unaccounted for stockpiles. More important, Saddam's forces had training and experience that the other Gulf States did not have.
Saddam never felt that and always maintained his intention to develop WMD and retake Kuwait as proven from interviews with Saddam after he was captured. Its not a question of how the United States could handle Saddam specifically at that time, but what would happen years later with sanctions and the weapons embargo in shambles and Saddam able to obtain capabilities both conventional and unconventional that he had not had before and the cost of going to war then, vs. going to war later in the future when Saddam would be stronger, or even worse had already launched another attack.
Everyone thought Saddam would never risk an invasion of Kuwait back in 1990. But that was abundently false and he even anticipated that the United States would respond right away which is why he sent the entire Republican Guard into Kuwait. How Saddam caculates risk is different from how others do, which is part of the danger. Deterence and other measures short of military force only work when the other person makes the same caculations and conclusions as you do about the consequences of certain actions. Saddam throughout his life proved that he had a different way of caculating things which was unpredictable. Another important reason of why he had to be removed.
If Iraq was not much of a threat, the United States would not have had to deploy 500,000 troops to Saudi Arabia to remove his miltary force from Kuwait. While much of the Iran/Iraq war had been a bit of a stalemate, after 1986, the Iraqi military gained the upper hand, and by 1988 had decisively crushed the Iranian military on the battlefield. The condition of the Iraqi military in 1989 vs. that of Iran proves the point. If Saddam was not much of a threat, the United States would never of had to go to war with him and Iran would have defeated him, and certainly would not have put so much of their efforts after the war into developing a nuclear weapon.
Again, name another country in the region that invaded and attacked four different countries unprovoked and amassed the amount of military hardware that Saddam did for Iraq. You would have to be living on another planet not to realize that Saddam was indeed a threat. The United Nations would NEVER have authorized the passing of 17 UN security council resolutions under Chapter VII rules of the United Nations which allows for resolutions to be enforced through the use of military means, if Iraq was not "much of a threat" as you claim.
It has been US policy since World War II to defend the Persian Gulf Oil supply from being cut off from the world because of the immediate disasterous economic effects this would have. The planet is dependent on the middle east for energy currently and none of the other alternatives are currently cheaper than oil from the middle east. The only alternative that works is one that is cheaper, and such an alternative does not exist, because if it did, business would be jumping all over it to reduce their cost and increase their profits. Alternative energy at the moment is not yet cost effective and the planet will continue to be dependent on the middle east for much of its energy needs for the near future.
A crises in the middle east which led to the loss of oil from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran combined would send the world into an economic Depression it would never recover from. The world is more dependent on Persian Gulf Oil than it ever has been in history. Global supply impacts global price, and as long as the world continues to use oil for much of its energy needs, it will be vital that the United States maintain the ability to respond to crises in the middle east in order to preserve the free flow of such resources to the rest of the world.
There is currently NO other source of oil that would trump the oil possessed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE and other Gulf States to a degree that the United States would no longer have to worry about security and stability in the region as it has done for 60 years now through both Democratic and Republican administrations.
No it was not. There were multiple other departments and people that were begining to see that Saddam had to be removed. Ken Pollack, who works for the Brookings Institution even wrote a book about the issue. Ken Pollack was one of Bill Clintons top experts on Iraq and one of only 3 CIA officers that predicted Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Congress passes resolutions when it wants to support military action. Congress actually declaring war is simply an outdated way of doing essentially the same thing.
The main reason given was Saddam's failure to abide by the 1991 Gulf War Ceacefire agreement and to comply with 17 UN security council resolutions. The NIE from 2002 stated that Saddam likely had a WMD arsenal and certainly was not complying with any of the resolutions. It was only after the United States invaded the country and searched in a way that was not possible without an invasion that WMD was not found. But simply not finding stocks does not mean they were not there, nor does it solve the problem of Saddam's large numbers of unaccounted for stocks of WMD as reported by the UN weapons inspectors.
Its a fact that Saddam at the time had failed to verifiably disarm of all WMD as required by the Gulf War Ceacefire agreement and the UN resolutions. Every tactic except removal of Saddam had been used in trying to bring Saddam into compliance with the UN resolutions and failed. Regime change was a necessity and by 2003 was already overdue.
It had been US policy to defend the Persian Gulf region from threats such as this since World War II. Even the French deployed military forces to help remove Saddam's military from Kuwait because even they realized it was necessary for the security and stability of the region. Many Democratic Senators regret voting against that resolution, including George Mitchell who was the Democratic leader in the Senate at the time.
Uh, no, Iraq was guilty of gassing a town in Kurdistan killing 5,000 Kurds in one day. Iran was supporting Kurdish elements against Saddam, not gassing them. Iranian WMD actively during the war was minor to non-existent relative to Iraqi use. The Soviet Union provided the bulk of the military training and equipment for Saddam during the war and the United States only supported Saddam with some loans, intelligence, and other non-military weaponry because the United States did not want to see Iran overrun Iraq and then turn on the weaker Gulf States to the south.
But Saddam started the war, and Iranian casualties and losses were double to triple that of Iraq's.
It is given that the United States and the coalition are responsible for removing Saddam and have a moral and ethical responsibility as well as a security need in rebuilding and stabilizing Iraq. The exact same thing can be said of Afghanistan.
There has been substantial political improvement especially at the local level. Those on the ground in Iraq feel that it is working, and the Iraqi government does not want the United States to rapidly withdraw at this time. The violence has been substantially reduced which means that THOUSANDS of lives have been saved. The Iraqi military is improving, and Iraqi Per capita GDP is rapidly increasing.
Given the current cost and deployment rate, as well as the number of brigades the United States has in the active US army, National Guard, and Marine Corp, the United States can maintain a large committment to Iraq for years to come, especially if it would take off the restrictions on how often to the National Guard can be used overseas in a 5 year period which would help to reduce the strain on the active Army and Marine Corp.
The Commanders have expressed the huge stress the services are dealing with as well as the fact that hundreds of Billions of dollars of equipment needs to be replaced. But no one has said that the military is broken. If that were the case the the recent US miltary surge would have been impossible.
The United States has kept troops in those area's at levels based on conditions on the ground there. The United States is actively engaged in counter insurgency and nation building activities throughout Afghanistan. The US occupation of Afghanistan is the most successful occupation of that country in history. But like any nation building, counter insurgency operation, it takes years to achieve success.
That is true, but the United States was prepared for heavy war fighting in both Bosnia and Serbia and deployed the same type of forces that it has deployed in Iraq in order to have the capacity to engage in such operations. Forces have been reduced over time as conditions on the ground have warrented it.
The United States provided 90% of the combat power for military operations in Bosnia in 1995 and military operations in Kosovo in 1999. It provided the largest contribution of ground forces for both operations initially and only as time as gone by and conditions on the ground improved in both countries have US troops been withdrawn as should happen with Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thats because the Serbs chose not to fight once US troops were on the ground. If they had, that would not be the case. The United States and NATO luckily had an easy time from a security stand point once ground forces were deployed, but the risk for heavy fighting was always there and the forces went in prepared for it. While what has happened from a security standpoint has been different thanks to the Serbs and others unwillingness to fight, the other aspects and difficulties of nation building have been similar.
Then why is Al Aquada in Iraq responsible for 4,000 deaths in Iraq in 2007, but only a relatively small number in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to CENTCOM which controls US military operations in both areas?
Well the people killing NATO forces in Afghanistan are mostly Afghani's or from the border area's and are not foreign fighters. The country with the larger number of foreign fighters is Iraq, not Afghanistan.
First, not everyone in the awakening councils are former insurgents. Second, the US military every day is in daily contact with the awakening council members on patrols in area's all across Iraq, and often stop by with supplies and equipment for them. According to US military forces on the ground, the intelligence supplied by former insurgents has been key in hunting down other Iraqi insurgents and members of Al Quada. The huge reductions in violence and reports from captured insurgents and Al Quada members have proven this.
The US military does not consider the policy indefensible, they have been benifiting from the policy over the past 2 years and have been more successful in combating Al Quada and insurgents in Iraq now than at any other time during the war. US casualties and Iraqi Casualties have rapidly fallen as a result. Getting these groups to work with the US military is a key way in helping reconcile them with the Iraqi government, which by the way is Shia majority but has Sunni and Kurdish representation. Provided the United States does not withdraw prematurely, the United States will succeed in helping to reconcile these many of these groups with the government. Iraq's many political and ethnic groups are coming to the realization that their interest lie in finding political solutions to their differences, instead of resolving things with force. No side stands to gain by excluding the other.
The current policy is based on long learned counter insurgency and nation building strategies. It is the same policy in Afghanistan. It is the only policy that will work. The only brain dead policy is one that rapidly withdraws US troops simply for US domestic political considerations and does not base such withdrawals on conditions on the ground inside Iraq.
Most of the Units that deployed to Kuwait for the invasion of Iraq were NEVER inside Afghanistan or deployed to Afghanistan. The 3rd Infantry Division Mechanized and the 1st Marine MEF, the 1st British Armored Division, were never deployed inside Afghanistan. These were the units that spear headed the invasion of Iraq! The 4th infantry Division Mechanized that came later was also not in Afghanistan. Some elements of the 101st Airassualt Division and a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division were, but most of those units came from the United States.
Again, the United States actually reinforced its troops in Afghanistan and launched a large scale offensive within Afghanistan just as Iraqi Operation Freedom was getting under way. Whether a small special forces unit was in Afghanistan or Iraq at the time was irrelevent to either operation, especially according to the CENTCOM commander at the time, Tommy Franks. The vast majority of US forces for the Iraq invasion came from the United States and were not diverted from operations in Afghanistan!
Israel is a US ally in the middle east and one of the few democracies in the region. They have provided the United States with intelligence and training and knowledge not found anywhere else. They have many of the same goals and objectives in the region as the United States does. The only ones living in a fantasy are those who don't recognize this.
The Arab world has NOT declared war on the United States. Most Arab countries have friendly ties with the United States and most have now come around to being ready to reconize Israel and have ties with Israel provided an agreement over the Palestinian issue can be hammered out.
I know, its in are interest to preserve the relationship as well as maintain stability in that area. US support for Israel, as well as our support for Egypt, Saudi Arabia Kuwait, and now Iraq help to achieve US foreign policy and security goals in the region.
Everyone benefits from the collective security arrangement and the relationship.
I think that it was an accident and certainly has not ruptured the relationship. Israel would have no reason for attacking the United States.
Israel has every right to exist. Apparently, you disagree. The United States military did not fight in the Arab Israely wars. It did not become a large supplier of Israel until after Israel successfully defended itself from the Brutal attack by 5 Arab nations in 1948.
Do you even understand the difference between the Budget Deficit and the National Debt? I said as a PERCENTAGE OF GDP, the national debt was higher on average during the Clinton years than during the Bush years. If you don't believe me, simply find the GDP level and national debt level for each year of the Clinton Presidency in order to determine the percentage for each year and then find the average for all 8 years. Do the same for the time Bush has been in office, and you'll find that I'm correct.
Clinton did finally balance the budget and produce a surplus during the relatively peaceful period he was in office, but only a small amount of national debt was paid down, and as a percentage of GDP on average, the national debt during the Clinton years was higher.
The fact that you think Bush has added more to the debt from Washington to Clinton combined shows that you've been mis-informed. I have all the figures for these periods and can crunch the numbers later if you would like.
Bush got the unemployment rate all the way down to 4.4% Clinton had it down to 3.8%. But on average for each period, unemployment under Bush was actually slightly lower.
Again, lower unemployment rate, lower debt as a percentage of GDP, and a lower poverty rate are things that the Bush did better than Clinton based on the average stats for those area's over their respective years.
The point being made though is that the United States does have the resources to fight the current war, and has spent a much higher percentage of its GDP on defense even when it was not actively at war in the past. The idea that the United States has been overly burdened by the current conflicts is simply false when one looks at what it is spending on these conflicts as a percentage of GDP.
The above response simply shows your not interested in having a factual and objective discussion of the issues and are only interested in singing the constant liberal Chorus that Bush is the worse thing that ever happened to the United States and to hell with examining whether or not that is actually the case.
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Here you go:In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
Iraq had been disarmed, Ritter's 1998 quote was referring to the period before the inspectors were pulled. As for all the weapons you keep saying he was continuing to compile, where are they? You have a higher burden of proof here since they have not been found and sources in military, intelligence, even Bush have said they were not there. The Burger King incident was never pursued by prosecutors, so there.
Clinton and other supported regime change/were concerned about Iraq. I thought I already dealt with that. I never said otherwise- what they were concerned about was getting the weapons out and verifying that they were destroyed and Saddam was contained through the sanctions, which he was. The policy of invading regardless of facts was hatched by the PNAC. They were looking for an excuse, that is obvious, connect the dots. DO NOT PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH. His wife and Biden voted for the war? Again, resolution to use force, not war, and Bush did not abide by the terms of a resolution that he had drafted in bad faith, so that 2002 vote is meaningless.
You seem to think Iraq invaded 4 countries. I count 2- Iran and Kuwait, the former with the material support of the US and the latter with the passive non resistance of Ambassador April Glaspie. Saddam's military again, has a record of getting run down like boy scouts, what part of that dont you understand?
The Iranians are dealing w/ their own Kurdish problem, and were not supporting the Kurds at the time at all. Learn history, Kurdistan encompasses parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan. Gas used by only Iranians took out the Kurds in 1988, google the US Army war college study on this. They were able to use the Iran-Iraq war as cover for something they had always wanted to do.
Iraq never had nuclear weapons, never was proven to have used chemical weapons on anyone but the Iranians, and with the full blessing and support of the United States, in fact we sold them to Saddam, Rumsfeld's pal at the time. So that is no justification for invading them in 2003 over weapons that had been verifiably destroyed. Pakistan verifiably has weapons and is teetering on the brink of al qaeda takeover. That is a much more serious threat than Iraq was in 2003. Bin Laden was the biggest threat in the region, bar none in 2003.
Iraq was not the strongest military in the region, ever, period. Just take Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In terms of overall military strength it has to be the Saudis or Egyptians. The Saudis have 315 M1A2 tanks and are going to be recieving 58 M1A2SEP. The Egyptians have over 750 M1A1 tanks. In terms of APC/IFV, The Saudis have Bradleys, LAVs, Mowag Piranha, and varients of the M113 whereas the Egyptians equipment mostly consists of old Soviet equipment with the exception of the M113.The Egyptians have a larger army but the Saudis have the advantage of American military assistance with training they also have better communication equipment. Also in the case of a war the Egyptians have a large trained reserve to call on. Both countries possess the AH-64 but it is the Egyptians that have the AH-64D. As long as the Saudi army stayed loyal they almost certainly have a superior army to the Egyptians. In the air the Egyptians modern fighter inventory consists of 20 Mirage 2000C and over 200 F-16 40 of them are block 30/32 and about 130 of them are of the modern block 40 configuration. They also have some E-2 hawkeyes. The Saudis have 96 Tornado IDS, about 60 F-15C/D, and about 70 F-15s (Similar to the F-15E but less advanced). Additionally the Saudis have an order for 72 Eurofighter Typhoons to begin deliveries in 2008. The Saudis undoubtedly have the strongest airforce (except for Israel) in the region. In terms of Navies the Egyptians have 2 Jianghu class patrol frigates, 2 Knox class anti-submarine frigates, and 4 Olivar Hazard Perry class frigates. The Saudis have three Lafayette type stealth frigates which are far superior to anything the Egyptians have.
There is no doubt that if the soldiers stayed loyal to the government and did not desert, Saudi Arabia has absolutely the most powerful military (Except Israel) in the middle east.
Israel and Turkey are significantly stronger than Iraq ever was. All the countries I mentioned relied on modern US weaponry as they are our allies, while Iraq was still relying on outdated Soviet weaponry that never matched up in the first place. Saddam only got Iran because he was propped up by the US. Iraq has never had the industrial capacity, the self-sustaining economy, the domestic arms industry, the population base, the coherent ideology or political mobilization, the powerful allies, or any of the necessary components for large-scale military conquest that the German, Italian, and Japanese fascists of the 1930s and 1940s had. Though better off than most of the non-Western world, Iraq was still a third world country and was quite incapable of seizing or holding large amounts of territory. Hitler’s army could not have been completely destroyed in less than 100 days, as was Saddam Hussein’s.
Sure, it is and has been our policy to defend the Gulf Oil supply, but there were ways to both prevent the invasion of Kuwait and get Saddam out of there before we went to war. He never threatened Saudi Arabia. It was Bush's decision to ratchet up the rhetoric and abandon sanctions and go rushing in there. Arab experts have said Saddam could have been compelled to withdraw diplomatically, and we never gave that a chance and as a result, got a war that turned Bin Laden against us. As for the French going for it, I dont give two shits about the French, you got that?? They always want us to do their dirty work, much like Israel. I evaluate policies based on what is best for this country, and if that happens to agree w/ the French(2003) or disagree (1991) then so be it. Kerry and all the Democrats have said they dont get a veto over us, so dont go there, which I know you will try.
Most of the Afghanis killing us in Afghanistan are Al Qaeda. Most of the Iraqis killing us in Iraq are not, that is the distinction. Though incidents of terrorism are highest in Iraq, terrorism is a TACTIC, not unique to one organization. They are Shiite and Sunni militants, not Al Qaeda, and they are vying for control of the country with us in the middle. The awakening councils are serving our interests and helping us now, but wait until they dont get their way in the government that we defend.
As for the Balkans, we were the initial force going in w/90% but it was not a full scale invasion/occupation, you still dont get that. It was primarily air support and ground equipment support to a much lesser extent. The Dayton accords established a federal system quickly, w/ all sides involved, and we have had a minor support presence there, nothing more, nothing less. This is what we need in Iraq.
Israel: I misspoke, I should have said turned a large segment of the populations of the Arab world against us. Alot of the governments are dictatorships whose views of the US are not shared by public opinion. Our strongest ally over there, Saudi Arabia is the biggest exporter of the Wahhabist ideology and home to the Bin Laden family. To be sure, some people and governments are genuinely allies of the US- Jordan, UAE, but that is the exception rather than the rule in the United States. If you look at the complaints of the terrorists , our support for Israel is #1. They illegally took Palestinian land when they settled in 1948, then again in 1967. They are currently in violation of more UN resolutions than Saddam ever though of being in violation of, thats also a fact. They took the Golan Heights in violation of international law, 3 days after the Liberty was out of the way to notice. Interesting. They knew it was a US ship, it had been identified as such, draw your own conclusions. We have got nothing from this relationship but terrorist propoganda. You peddle the typical Israel propoganda line of we benefit from this relationship. We do not, it is what created the backlash against us from the radical elements of Islam. Not excusing terrorists or their actions, just pointing out what they are motivated by.
With respect to diversion from Afghanistan: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52673-2004Oct21.html dont take my word, look at the internal debate in the Bush administration.
Violence in Iraq increases:http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/iraq/2008/03/27/new-violence-shakes-things-up-in-iraq.html http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL3074402120080430?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews these figures are only new highs in violence since the summer of 07, well after the surge kicked in. It is not working by any objective standard. Political progress has not been made at the national level, that is where it counts. The local level progress only vindicates Biden's plan for a federal system that no one wants to discuss as well as vindicates my earlier point that Iraqis controlling their own destiny will find the foreign al qaeda and get them out of their country. We can not stay as a crutch, it will not work. Our military is broken, despite what you say. Our commanders have testified as much, troops are on 5 time deployments to Iraq, reserves are being called up. www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1606888,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801534_pf.html
come back to me when you are ready to tell me you know better than these people.
As for budget and the economy, dont bother to crunch phony numbers, I will do the real ones for you:
Deficits and national debt, of course I know the difference and dont condescend. Deficit is simply the amount spent over the amount collected in a particular year, while national debt is the budget deficits over time plus interest. I am not an idiot and my post made very clear I knew the difference. We have a $415 billion projected deficit and a $9 trillion national debt. Your claim about Clinton is laughable re: national debt and GDP. http://uspolitics.about.com/od/thef...Economic-Measures/Presidential-Comparison.htm ^
The national debt increased under both administrations (in today's dollars). But under Clinton the debt rose more slowly and GDP rose faster than under Bush. The result is that the ratio of debt to GDP went down an average of 3.89 percent per year during the Clinton years, but has gone up an average of 0.94 percent per year during the Bush years. It is true that debt as a percentage of GDP was higher in 1993 than any Bush yr, but that was before Clinton's first budget and deficit reduction, a gift from Reagan-Bush, who had the largest peacetime real debt and debt as a percentage of GDP. The national debt increased because we needed a surplus to pay it off, and Clinton still had to deal with deficits that Reagan-Bush handed him. Once he got those under control, he went to work on the national debt, with a plan to pay it down by 2015 and two years of progress toward this goal. Then Bush came in. You cant have your own facts, no matter how hard you try. You are just making yourself sound more ludacris by the second.
Of course we have spent more militarily before than we have on this war, but that does not mean we do not have record deficits and debt for no reason whatsoever, or that we do not have more pressing issues to deal with in terms of spending money. Whether it be infrastructure, health care, rebuilding our military, taking care of our veterans, securing loose nukes in Russia, increasing homeland security, the list goes on. All of this is drawn from scarce resources, and historical context can do nothing to justify squandering what will be 2 trillion for nothing when there are other needs. We absolutely had to fight WW II, needed to contain the Soviet Union as they were the other superpower. Now, we dont have such a superpower, again, apples to oranges. We have never borrowed like this to pay for a war, we actually increased taxes like we should to finance World War II and Vietnam and has a result had less money added to the national debt as a result. And we paid it off quicker. Since Reagan, this has not been a concern. Whatever, when the economy collapses in a few years, more jobs are lost and interest rates or inflation skyrocket, the dollar falls even more and oil is $250 per barrell, keep telling yourself deficits dont matter.
Jobs: 23 million under Clinton, compared to a total of around 3 million for Bush. Unemployment rate 1.1 percentage points higher than when he took office, at 5% and rising. It got to 6.8% in 2003 and it is on its way back there, in case you havent been following the news. He is the first president since Nixon to have presided over 2 recessions. Clinton inherited unemployment of 6.9% and got it down to 3.9%. The average means very little, one inherited a very low unemployment rate and made it worse and never got it back down to where he inherited it. The other inherited a high 6.9% and consistently reduced it. Who did better? Besides, the average for Clinton was 5.2%, which is probably the exact average during Bush's term, and it may wind up being higher because of this yr. We dont have a full comparison yet, and it is meaningless.100-200,000 per month was his job creation rate until he went back to losing them this yr. That is not even enough to keep up w/ population growth. Previous expansions saw 300-400,000 jobs created each month. In addition, wages fell for the average American Clinton-median household income +1.45%, Bush -1.15%. When did you have more money in your pocket?
You are the one not using facts, and I am not spouting the liberal chorus of just blind hatred of Bush. What was factually inaccurate about his personal life that I mentioned? Republicans mention similar stuff about Clinton, the only difference is much of it is baseless. Dont come back here until you have read all the links and all of this stuff carefully, ok??
Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
Iraq had been disarmed, Ritter's 1998 quote was referring to the period before the inspectors were pulled. As for all the weapons you keep saying he was continuing to compile, where are they? You have a higher burden of proof here since they have not been found and sources in military, intelligence, even Bush have said they were not there. The Burger King incident was never pursued by prosecutors, so there.
Clinton and other supported regime change/were concerned about Iraq. I thought I already dealt with that. I never said otherwise- what they were concerned about was getting the weapons out and verifying that they were destroyed and Saddam was contained through the sanctions, which he was. The policy of invading regardless of facts was hatched by the PNAC. They were looking for an excuse, that is obvious, connect the dots. DO NOT PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH. His wife and Biden voted for the war? Again, resolution to use force, not war, and Bush did not abide by the terms of a resolution that he had drafted in bad faith, so that 2002 vote is meaningless.
You seem to think Iraq invaded 4 countries. I count 2- Iran and Kuwait, the former with the material support of the US and the latter with the passive non resistance of Ambassador April Glaspie. Saddam's military again, has a record of getting run down like boy scouts, what part of that dont you understand?
The Iranians are dealing w/ their own Kurdish problem, and were not supporting the Kurds at the time at all. Learn history, Kurdistan encompasses parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan. Gas used by only Iranians took out the Kurds in 1988, google the US Army war college study on this. They were able to use the Iran-Iraq war as cover for something they had always wanted to do.
Iraq never had nuclear weapons, never was proven to have used chemical weapons on anyone but the Iranians, and with the full blessing and support of the United States, in fact we sold them to Saddam, Rumsfeld's pal at the time. So that is no justification for invading them in 2003 over weapons that had been verifiably destroyed. Pakistan verifiably has weapons and is teetering on the brink of al qaeda takeover. That is a much more serious threat than Iraq was in 2003. Bin Laden was the biggest threat in the region, bar none in 2003.
Iraq was not the strongest military in the region, ever, period. Just take Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In terms of overall military strength it has to be the Saudis or Egyptians. The Saudis have 315 M1A2 tanks and are going to be recieving 58 M1A2SEP. The Egyptians have over 750 M1A1 tanks. In terms of APC/IFV, The Saudis have Bradleys, LAVs, Mowag Piranha, and varients of the M113 whereas the Egyptians equipment mostly consists of old Soviet equipment with the exception of the M113.The Egyptians have a larger army but the Saudis have the advantage of American military assistance with training they also have better communication equipment. Also in the case of a war the Egyptians have a large trained reserve to call on. Both countries possess the AH-64 but it is the Egyptians that have the AH-64D. As long as the Saudi army stayed loyal they almost certainly have a superior army to the Egyptians. In the air the Egyptians modern fighter inventory consists of 20 Mirage 2000C and over 200 F-16 40 of them are block 30/32 and about 130 of them are of the modern block 40 configuration. They also have some E-2 hawkeyes. The Saudis have 96 Tornado IDS, about 60 F-15C/D, and about 70 F-15s (Similar to the F-15E but less advanced). Additionally the Saudis have an order for 72 Eurofighter Typhoons to begin deliveries in 2008. The Saudis undoubtedly have the strongest airforce (except for Israel) in the region. In terms of Navies the Egyptians have 2 Jianghu class patrol frigates, 2 Knox class anti-submarine frigates, and 4 Olivar Hazard Perry class frigates. The Saudis have three Lafayette type stealth frigates which are far superior to anything the Egyptians have.
There is no doubt that if the soldiers stayed loyal to the government and did not desert, Saudi Arabia has absolutely the most powerful military (Except Israel) in the middle east.
Israel and Turkey are significantly stronger than Iraq ever was. All the countries I mentioned relied on modern US weaponry as they are our allies, while Iraq was still relying on outdated Soviet weaponry that never matched up in the first place. Saddam only got Iran because he was propped up by the US. Iraq has never had the industrial capacity, the self-sustaining economy, the domestic arms industry, the population base, the coherent ideology or political mobilization, the powerful allies, or any of the necessary components for large-scale military conquest that the German, Italian, and Japanese fascists of the 1930s and 1940s had. Though better off than most of the non-Western world, Iraq was still a third world country and was quite incapable of seizing or holding large amounts of territory. Hitler’s army could not have been completely destroyed in less than 100 days, as was Saddam Hussein’s.
Sure, it is and has been our policy to defend the Gulf Oil supply, but there were ways to both prevent the invasion of Kuwait and get Saddam out of there before we went to war. He never threatened Saudi Arabia. It was Bush's decision to ratchet up the rhetoric and abandon sanctions and go rushing in there. Arab experts have said Saddam could have been compelled to withdraw diplomatically, and we never gave that a chance and as a result, got a war that turned Bin Laden against us. As for the French going for it, I dont give two shits about the French, you got that?? They always want us to do their dirty work, much like Israel. I evaluate policies based on what is best for this country, and if that happens to agree w/ the French(2003) or disagree (1991) then so be it. Kerry and all the Democrats have said they dont get a veto over us, so dont go there, which I know you will try.
Most of the Afghanis killing us in Afghanistan are Al Qaeda. Most of the Iraqis killing us in Iraq are not, that is the distinction. Though incidents of terrorism are highest in Iraq, terrorism is a TACTIC, not unique to one organization. They are Shiite and Sunni militants, not Al Qaeda, and they are vying for control of the country with us in the middle. The awakening councils are serving our interests and helping us now, but wait until they dont get their way in the government that we defend.
As for the Balkans, we were the initial force going in w/90% but it was not a full scale invasion/occupation, you still dont get that. It was primarily air support and ground equipment support to a much lesser extent. The Dayton accords established a federal system quickly, w/ all sides involved, and we have had a minor support presence there, nothing more, nothing less. This is what we need in Iraq.
Israel: I misspoke, I should have said turned a large segment of the populations of the Arab world against us. Alot of the governments are dictatorships whose views of the US are not shared by public opinion. Our strongest ally over there, Saudi Arabia is the biggest exporter of the Wahhabist ideology and home to the Bin Laden family. To be sure, some people and governments are genuinely allies of the US- Jordan, UAE, but that is the exception rather than the rule in the United States. If you look at the complaints of the terrorists , our support for Israel is #1. They illegally took Palestinian land when they settled in 1948, then again in 1967. They are currently in violation of more UN resolutions than Saddam ever though of being in violation of, thats also a fact. They took the Golan Heights in violation of international law, 3 days after the Liberty was out of the way to notice. Interesting. They knew it was a US ship, it had been identified as such, draw your own conclusions. We have got nothing from this relationship but terrorist propoganda. You peddle the typical Israel propoganda line of we benefit from this relationship. We do not, it is what created the backlash against us from the radical elements of Islam. Not excusing terrorists or their actions, just pointing out what they are motivated by.
With respect to diversion from Afghanistan: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52673-2004Oct21.html dont take my word, look at the internal debate in the Bush administration.
Violence in Iraq increases:http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/iraq/2008/03/27/new-violence-shakes-things-up-in-iraq.html http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL3074402120080430?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews these figures are only new highs in violence since the summer of 07, well after the surge kicked in. It is not working by any objective standard. Political progress has not been made at the national level, that is where it counts. The local level progress only vindicates Biden's plan for a federal system that no one wants to discuss as well as vindicates my earlier point that Iraqis controlling their own destiny will find the foreign al qaeda and get them out of their country. We can not stay as a crutch, it will not work. Our military is broken, despite what you say. Our commanders have testified as much, troops are on 5 time deployments to Iraq, reserves are being called up. www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1606888,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801534_pf.html
come back to me when you are ready to tell me you know better than these people.
As for budget and the economy, dont bother to crunch phony numbers, I will do the real ones for you:
Deficits and national debt, of course I know the difference and dont condescend. Deficit is simply the amount spent over the amount collected in a particular year, while national debt is the budget deficits over time plus interest. I am not an idiot and my post made very clear I knew the difference. We have a $415 billion projected deficit and a $9 trillion national debt. Your claim about Clinton is laughable re: national debt and GDP. http://uspolitics.about.com/od/thef...Economic-Measures/Presidential-Comparison.htm ^
The national debt increased under both administrations (in today's dollars). But under Clinton the debt rose more slowly and GDP rose faster than under Bush. The result is that the ratio of debt to GDP went down an average of 3.89 percent per year during the Clinton years, but has gone up an average of 0.94 percent per year during the Bush years. It is true that debt as a percentage of GDP was higher in 1993 than any Bush yr, but that was before Clinton's first budget and deficit reduction, a gift from Reagan-Bush, who had the largest peacetime real debt and debt as a percentage of GDP. The national debt increased because we needed a surplus to pay it off, and Clinton still had to deal with deficits that Reagan-Bush handed him. Once he got those under control, he went to work on the national debt, with a plan to pay it down by 2015 and two years of progress toward this goal. Then Bush came in. You cant have your own facts, no matter how hard you try. You are just making yourself sound more ludacris by the second.
Of course we have spent more militarily before than we have on this war, but that does not mean we do not have record deficits and debt for no reason whatsoever, or that we do not have more pressing issues to deal with in terms of spending money. Whether it be infrastructure, health care, rebuilding our military, taking care of our veterans, securing loose nukes in Russia, increasing homeland security, the list goes on. All of this is drawn from scarce resources, and historical context can do nothing to justify squandering what will be 2 trillion for nothing when there are other needs. We absolutely had to fight WW II, needed to contain the Soviet Union as they were the other superpower. Now, we dont have such a superpower, again, apples to oranges. We have never borrowed like this to pay for a war, we actually increased taxes like we should to finance World War II and Vietnam and has a result had less money added to the national debt as a result. And we paid it off quicker. Since Reagan, this has not been a concern. Whatever, when the economy collapses in a few years, more jobs are lost and interest rates or inflation skyrocket, the dollar falls even more and oil is $250 per barrell, keep telling yourself deficits dont matter.
Jobs: 23 million under Clinton, compared to a total of around 3 million for Bush. Unemployment rate 1.1 percentage points higher than when he took office, at 5% and rising. It got to 6.8% in 2003 and it is on its way back there, in case you havent been following the news. He is the first president since Nixon to have presided over 2 recessions. Clinton inherited unemployment of 6.9% and got it down to 3.9%. The average means very little, one inherited a very low unemployment rate and made it worse and never got it back down to where he inherited it. The other inherited a high 6.9% and consistently reduced it. Who did better? Besides, the average for Clinton was 5.2%, which is probably the exact average during Bush's term, and it may wind up being higher because of this yr. We dont have a full comparison yet, and it is meaningless.100-200,000 per month was his job creation rate until he went back to losing them this yr. That is not even enough to keep up w/ population growth. Previous expansions saw 300-400,000 jobs created each month. In addition, wages fell for the average American Clinton-median household income +1.45%, Bush -1.15%. When did you have more money in your pocket?
You are the one not using facts, and I am not spouting the liberal chorus of just blind hatred of Bush. What was factually inaccurate about his personal life that I mentioned? Republicans mention similar stuff about Clinton, the only difference is much of it is baseless. Dont come back here until you have read all the links and all of this stuff carefully, ok??
the tourist
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All of this is moot anyway. Until it is, you know, history. Til then, it's just posturing.
Strongbow: Your ingorance on the Condi Rice/Colin Powell quotes is shocking, as is the Iraq military and national debt/economy stuff. The people with the most to say often have no idea what they are talking about. All of your line by line responses are meaningless and dont rebut anything with facts, just speculation and putting words in people's mouths. Bosnia is a perfect example- we of course were 90% of that very small peacekeeping force that was deployed to the region, yet you try and sell this as something on par with our full scale military invasion of Iraq. Pathetic. Then your Iraq military strength BS-- would only fly if the rest of the middle eastern militaries consisted of speed boats and handguns. You make Saddam out to be the next Alexander the great, he was far from that and you are crazy for putting forth Iraq as a even a regional, never mind a global military threat.
I will not be entering this thread again or responding to your posts, because you obviously are so blinded by your love for Bush that you can not see facts and have to turn factual rebuttals offered by others into 'liberal fantasy.' In your world, speculation is fact and facts are liberal conspiracies. The FACTS, as have been verified by our own intelligence are that Bush has not made us safer, Al Qaeda is stronger and we are bogged down in a quagmire in Iraq. Economically, our own executive office of budget and management confirms the numbers I have spoke of. You can have your own opinion but not your own facts. These are facts, and the rest is just you living in denial. Have a nice day, WATCH OUT FOR PAKISTAN, YOU HEARD THAT HERE FIRST.
I will not be entering this thread again or responding to your posts, because you obviously are so blinded by your love for Bush that you can not see facts and have to turn factual rebuttals offered by others into 'liberal fantasy.' In your world, speculation is fact and facts are liberal conspiracies. The FACTS, as have been verified by our own intelligence are that Bush has not made us safer, Al Qaeda is stronger and we are bogged down in a quagmire in Iraq. Economically, our own executive office of budget and management confirms the numbers I have spoke of. You can have your own opinion but not your own facts. These are facts, and the rest is just you living in denial. Have a nice day, WATCH OUT FOR PAKISTAN, YOU HEARD THAT HERE FIRST.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
What sort of action do you think should happen in regards to Pakistan.
U2387 said:
Colin Powell has consistently stated that he supports the removal of Saddam from power because he was a threat. More than a year after he left the Bush administration, he continued to state in an interview with Barbara Walters, that when President Bush said it was not tolerable for Saddam to remain in violation of the UN resolutions, he is right there with Bush on the US of military force to remove Saddam.
As for the qoute, the United States did not have specific evidence at the time that Saddam had developed a new significant capability in regards to a specific type of WMD, but that did not mean that there were not thousands of unaccounted for stocks of WMD which UN inspectors including Scott Ritter in 1998 had reported were missing. At no time did Saddam EVER fully comply with all of the demands of the UN inspections, the UN resolutions, or the 1991 Gulf War Ceacefire agreement.
Saddam had a the largest military in the Persian Gulf and was still fully capable of moving that military force around the country as well as entering Kuwait. Its most likely that Colin Powell simply mispoke, since that is just glaringly false. In fact, members of Saddam's army had in the 1990s crossed the border into Kuwait temporarily to take abandoned damaged Iraqi vehicles in the desert back into Iraq and repair them.
All of Saddam's remaining Republican Guard Divisions could still be moved all across the country and into Kuwait if Saddam so desired. In late 1994, Two of Saddam's Republican Guard divisions, the Hammurabi and Al-Nida Armored Divisions, moved quickly towards Kuwait in a similar way that they had back in 1990. The United States response was to deploy over 120,000 troops to the Persian Gulf, but it took a considerable amount of time to deploy the entire force. One can debate about what would have happened if Saddam had actually invaded Kuwait, but what is not debatable is the fact that the United States was forced into a situation where it had to send a large substantial force thousands of miles to meet up with the limited number of US forces in the region in order to try to combat a potential invasion of Kuwait or attempt to reverse an Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait.
If Iraq had no ability to project conventional military power upon its neighbors, the United States would not be needing to deploy such large forces to the region. The problem for the United States is the limited number of troops it was basing in the region because of political restrictions, and the difficulty and time involved in shipping the much larger forces from the United States and other parts of the world in order to deal with a crises situation there.
With the Condoleezza Rice qoute, again it appears that she is misspeaking as the United States nor any other country did not have the ability to "keep his arms from him". Its true in 2001 that Iraqi forces had not rebuilt the capabilities they once had before the 1991 Gulf War, but with sanctions and the weapons embargo starting to fall apart in 2000 and even countries like France, Russia and China violating sanctions restrictions on Iraq, it was only a matter of time before Iraq would be able to rebuild the capabilities they once had. In addition, while Saddam did not have troops stationed in Kurdistan, he had at several points launched successful offensives into Kurdistan to crush uprisings that threatened the regime further south including uprisings that were started and supplied by the CIA.
Its not wise to cherry pick a few qoutes and make wild extrapolations based on them.
If Iraq had been verifiably disarmed, Iraq would not have been in violation of multiple UN resolutions in regards to disarmament on the eve of the 2003 invasion. Ritter himself stated in 1998 that Iraq had failed to account for thousands of stocks of WMD. Its not incumbent upon the United States or any other country to prove or show where such WMD was either stored or dismantled if that in fact happened. Its Iraq's responsibility to do that per the terms they signed onto on the 1991 Gulf War Ceacefire agreement. Verifiable disarmament means Iraq had to dismantle ALL WMD in a way that UN inspectors could verify. Failure to show where certain WMD was located or where it was dismantled is a violation of the terms. Its not the UN's or the United States responsibility to verifiably disarm Iraq of WMD, it was Saddam's responsibility, and Saddam failed to do that. Regardless of what you think of Ritter's BK incident, he had already contradicted himself on numourous occasions and never claimed that Saddam had complied with all the terms of disarmament when he was still a UN inspector.
Bill Clinton went on Larry King Live the week before the invasion and stated that Bush was doing the right thing. You can spin the Iraq vote in 2002 any way you want it, but it does not change the fact that it was vote for war against Iraq. If that was not the case where was Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton attempting to pass a congresional resolultion to block the invasion in March 2003? Where was their impassioned opposition and protest to the invasion in March 2003? There was essentially none, because overall they supported the policy and the invasion. But I challenge you to find one qoute from Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton saying that Bush was doing the WRONG thing the week of the invasion. Just ONE!
Talk about puting words in peoples mouths. I said Iraq invaded and ATTACKED four different countries unprovoked. Saddam invaded Iran in 1980 with no material support from the United States at all. It was not until 1983 and the difficulties that the Iraqi military was having fighting the Iranians that the United States began to offer some limited aid, but the vast bulk of all of Iraq's weaponry and training came from the Soviet Union which had over 1,000 military personal stationed in Iraq during the entire Iran/Iraq war.
Saddam then invaded Kuwait in August of 1990. In February of 1991, Iraq launched Scud Missiles into Saudi Arabia and sent an Iraqi armored division across the border from Kuwait into Saudi Arabia and captured the Saudi Arabian town of Kafji. In addition to this Iraq launched dozens of Scud Missiles into Israel which could have been armed with unconventional warheads. So yes, thats four countries either invaded or attacked by Saddam. Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
Saddam's military ended up crushing the Iranian military at the end of the war. By 1989, Saddam's had 12 times as many tanks as Iran(nearly 6,000 for Iraq to just 500 for Iran, which just goes to show you how badly the Iranian military was defeated on the battlefield late in the war. It only took Saddam 48 hours to overrun Kuwait in 1990, and your hero Joe Biden never refered to the Iraqi military as a bunch of Boy Scouts in the run up to the Gulf War. The Democrats were predicting that the United States would lose tens of thousands of troops in the 1991 Gulf War, despite the fact that the United States through Saddam's mistakes had been given time to build up significantly large forces in Saudi Arabia.
The major incident of the gassing of Kurds in 1988 took place March 16-17, 1988 in the IRAQI town of Halabja. Nearly 5,000 were killed and nearly 10,000 were injured. This was not something that took place inside Iran with Iranian Kurds. It is true that there were allegations that Iran was responsible for the attack based on the results of the deaths and the toxins that appeared to have caused those deaths, but those test were far from being conclusive. Dr Jean Pascal Zanders, Project Leader of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) concluded in 2007 that Iraq was the culprit, and not Iran. Joost Hiltermann, who was the principal researcher for the HRW between 1992-1994, conducted a two-year study, including a field investigation in northern Iraq, capturing Iraqi government documents in the process. According to his analysis of thousands of captured Iraqi secret police documents and declassified U.S. government documents, as well as interviews with scores of Kurdish survivors, senior Iraqi defectors and retired U.S. intelligence officers, it is clear that Iraq carried out the attack on Halabja. This research concluded there were numerous other gas attacks, unquestionably perpetrated against the Kurds by the Iraqi armed forces. According to Hiltermann, the literature on the Iran-Iraq war reflects a number of allegations of CW use by Iran, but these are "marred by a lack of specificity as to time and place, and the failure to provide any sort of evidence". He calls these allegations "mere assertions" and adds: "no persuasive evidence of the claim that Iran was the primary culprit was ever presented".
No one ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons, but US weapons inspectors in 1991 that Iraq was nearly 1 year away from having a nuclear weapon when previous intelligence had stated they were over 10 years away from getting a nuclear weapon.
It has been proven multiple times that Iraq used WMD on its own citizens and Iranians. The United States never sold Iraq ANY WMD. Its an absurd and laughable allegation. The United States did allow Iraq to obtain duel use items some of which later were used to produce Biological Weapons that were never used in the Iran/Iraq war. Such duel use items were available to any country in the world though as long as they were not currently on the the United States list of terrorist sponsors. The United States did provide 5 Billion dollars in loans to Iraq, Trucks, Transport Helicopters, Computers and other technical equipment, as well as duel use medical equipment, but it never provided Iraq with Combat Weapons, or any form of WMD or weaponized material for WMD.
Pakistan was not in 2003 and is not now about to fall to Al Quada. There are serious problems with certain tribes in North West Pakistan who harbor remaining elements of Al Quada and support the remaining Taliban in Afghanistan, but the situation there is much more complex and presents a very different type of problem than the situation with Saddam in Iraq in 2003. The probability that Pakistan was going to be overthrown by a few hundred members of Al Quada in 2003 was next to impossible, while Saddam invading and attacking Persian Gulf Oil supply either then or years later with the aid of new weapons acquired because the containment regime had fallen apart was a very likely senerio that required that Saddam be removed from power.
Now I think its time for a word about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction that you continue to maintain were verifiably destroyed. I give you UN resolution 1441 passed in November of 2002 by a unnanomous vote which had even Syria voting in support of it, take note of the following lines in the resolution:
Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions and
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to
international peace and security,
Deploring the fact that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full, final, and
complete disclosure, as required by resolution 687 (1991), of all aspects of its
programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles with a
range greater than one hundred and fifty kilometres, and of all holdings of such
weapons, their components and production facilities and locations, as well as all
other nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not
related to nuclear-weapons-usable material,
http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N02/682/26/PDF/N0268226.pdf?OpenElement
Sorry, but Saddam NEVER verifiably destroyed all of their WMD as required by the United Nations according to the United Nations based on what the inspectors new.
Well, first let me inform you that EGYPT is NOT in the Persian Gulf. It is nearly 1,000 miles from the Kuwait/Iraqi border as well as the Persian Gulf. Overland, Egypt would have to go through Israel Jordan and hundreds of miles of desert in Saudi Arabia just to get down to the Persian Gulf. When Egyptian forces deployed to Saudi Arabia in 1990, they were transported by sea by the United States, but it took months for those forces to get there. Egypt played little if any serious combat role in the 1991 Gulf War in any event. In terms of an immediate Iraqi attack on Kuwait and northern Saudi Arabia, there would be virtually nothing Egypt could do because they are simply to far away and don't have the resources independently to send and supply their ground forces that far from home. Some of their air assets could be available but thats it.
So forgetting Egypt since its not relevant to combat situations in the Persian Gulf area around Kuwait, lets move on to Saudi Arabia. Yes, Saudi Arabia TODAY has 315 M1A2 Tanks, but it did not have such tanks back in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Its total tank force was only 550, less than 10% of Iraq's. TODAY Saudi Arabia does have 910 tanks, but nearly half of them are in storage. Saudi Arabia only actively uses 115 of the 315 M1A2 tanks that it has. The other 200 are kept in storage. The rest of the tanks that fill up its 14 tank Battalions are the older M-60 tanks. The Saudi's are only actively using 550 of their tanks, which is still less than 1/5 of what Saddam had potentially ready to throw into any offensive to the south of Iraq.
Yes, the Saudi Military does possess the AH-64 Attack Helicopter. Its the only attack Helicopter they have and they only have a grand total of 12 of them. In 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Saudi's had no attack Helicopters.
The Saudi Airforce today does have 278 combat Aircraft and impressive Aircraft types like the F-15S, F-15C, F-15D and the Tornado IDS. But this leads me to my next point, Saudi training and combat experience are notably lacking compared to Iraqi's. The situation was worse back in 1990, but it has not improved to the degree that it should be today. Combat experience as well as training are important factors in assessing overall capability. A force with superior equipment can be defeated by a more experienced, motivated, and trained force with equipment that is relatively dated. Iraq never gained the upper hand over Iran until the Soviet trainers succeeded in developing the Iraqi Republican Guard into a trained military force capable of executing large scale military manevours at every level from the Battalion level all the way up to the divisional and Corp level. Iraq's forces had the extensive experience of nearly 25 years of war, whether it was against Iran, Kuwait, the United States and its allies, or rebels within Iraq. Saudi Arabia does not have nearly that level of experience, and their participation in the actual combat of Desert Storm in 1991 was rather limited. While some equipment types obviously favored Saudi Arabia in 2003, training, combat experience, and raw numbers favored Iraq.
But lets go back to 1990 and actually look at what Kuwait had that only lasted less than 48 hours against Saddam. Kuwait had 275 Tanks including 70 Vickers Mk 1, and 165 British Chieftains which were once regarded as the best tank in the world. When it came to other armored vehicles they had 100 Saladin's, 90 Ferret's, 50 BMP-2's, 200 M-113, 130 Saracen, 100 Fahd. With Artillery Kuwait had 16 M-101, 40 AMX Mk F-3, 36 M-109A2's, 12 FROG-7 launchers. With Anti-Tank Guided Weapons Kuwait had 20 HOT Missile launchers, 56 TOW mounted M-901's, 200 Vigilant. The Airforce had 20 Mirage F-1CK, and 4 F-1BK. 12 SA-342 Attack Helicopters armed with HOT Anti-Tank Missiles, and 6 AS-332's armed with the Exocet anti-ship missle.
All of what Kuwait had was crushed by two Republican Guard Divisions, TWO, in less than 48 hours in early August 1990. Iraq had 6 other Republican Guard Divisions well over 50 regular army Divisions. Iraq had the worlds 4th largest military in 1990 and even in 2003, Iraq's weakened military was still the 15th largest in the world, with one of the worlds largest inventories of military equipment. It was determined in 2003 after the initial invasion that Iraq had more ammo and munitions and other military related stockpiles still after all this time, than any other country in the world except for the United States and Russia when counting individual shells, missiles, bullets etc.
Again, you cannot narrowly caculate overall military power by simply listing a few equipment types. Training, combat experience, motivation, as well as raw numbers also heavily impact such caculations. Saddam was consider to have by for the most powerful Arab military force in 1990. In 2003, his military weakened by the first Gulf War, and unable to start rebuilding until recently because of the sanctions and embargo, was still regarded by most experts to the strongest military force in the Persian Gulf Region, ie countries bordering the Persian Gulf.
Turkey in 1990 was not stronger than Iraq, in 2003 an arguement could be made that Turkey was indeed stronger, but not strong enough or positioned properly do to geography to stop a determined thrust by Saddam's military into Kuwait. Israel's forces are very advanced, but numerically small and face multiple other security problems in defending a country with such a thin and vulnerable geography. Just as Egypt is not positioned to intervene in a timely manner in the Persian Gulf in a significant and decisive way, neither is Israel, plus Israel is further strained by other security concerns. So again, not only are raw numbers, training, combat experience important, technology of equipment, but so is geography, and other political and security situations which heavily influence the ability of the country in question to play any sort of a role in a crises in the Persian Gulf.
Saddam was not propped up by the United States. More than 90% of the funding for Iraq in the 1980s came from Arab States, the Soviet Union, China and some European countries. The United States played a relatively minor role. The Iraqi's were flooded with Equipment from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and they were able to produce spare parts for such equipment as well as manufacture their own ammunition and other vital things to keep that military in the field.
Iraq and many other countries don't actually need several of those things to pose a massive threat to the United States and the world. Saddam does not need a force large enough for continental conquest on a scale relative to World War II Germany and Japan. All he needs is a force strong enough to overrun Kuwait. Its only 60 miles from the Iraq/Kuwait border to Kuwait City. The Iraqi border is only 300 miles from the Saudi capital of Riyad. Just 20 miles across the Saudi border from Kuwait lies the start of the rich Saudi oil fields, so Saddam would not need to even go all the way to the Saudi Capital to cause massive damage. With so much of the planets oil supply located in close proximity in and around Kuwait, either in Kuzistan in Southwestern Iran, Kuwait itself, or North Eastern Saudi Arabia, Saddam does not have to go very far, several dozen miles in each direction, to cause massive damage, against countries that are relatively weaker than he is when you accurately caculate all of the factors that determine military strength.
One thing that Saddam has, that Hitler never did is relatively advanced technology, Ballistic Missiles, more sophisticated WMD and he came closer to building a Nuclear Weapon than Hitler ever did. Plus, Saddam's Iraq is geographically positioned ideally in area of the world that makes it very easy for Saddam to threaten the global economy in a way that Hitler could not in the 1940s world which was far less dependent on Persian Gulf Oil than the world is today. The global economy is far more interdependent and impacted by international trade and oil supply from one specific area of the world than the world was in the 1930s and 1940s.
As I already explained before, Saddam does not need to seize or hold large amounts of territory in order to be a threat to the planet. He only has to seize, hold or sabotage a very small area that he is geographically located next to in order to cause a disaster for the global economy.
Again, the United States and its allies were only able to do what they did to Saddam in 1990 as well as 2003 because they were given the time to deploy and set up a large force in the area. Hitler's army could have been destroyed in a few months back in the early 1930s when the European allies should have taken action which would have saved millions of lives and prevented World War II. Instead, they Europe sat and did nothing as Hitler violated every treaty designed to prevent another dangerous security situation from developing. The failure of the European allies to decisively act when Hitler was weaker led to World War II and the deaths of tens of millions of people. Allowing Saddam to remain in power with the sanctions and embargo regime essentially gone as well as several other parts of containment would have allowed Saddam to rebuild his conventional and non-conventional military assets and threaten the planets vital energy reserves located nearby Iraq. Failing to act as many countries had failed to in past conflicts, or repeating the same situation of 1990 was not an option, and everything to prevent those sitiations from occuring again had to be done, and with containment crumbling, regime change in Iraq was the only option left.
I find it very odd that you would continue to defend a vote by Joe Biden that not even Joe Biden would defend today! There was no other way for the United States and the Coalition to restore security to the region and remove Saddam from Kuwait than through the use of military force. The only people who really opposed the use of military force in 1991 were the Democrats in Congress. The rest of the world along with the Republicans and a few Democrats supported military action to remove Saddam from Kuwait. Sanctions would never have removed Saddam from Kuwait. The same sanctions that were on Saddam before the 1991 Gulf War were still on him later in the 1990s and failed to compell Saddam to comply with the UN resolutions or the Gulf War Ceacefire Agreement. Some leaders only stand the language of military force, and Saddam was one of those leaders. In hind site, the Democrats position on the Gulf War in 1991 including Joe Bidens looks silly and Joe Biden himself would not disagree with that.
When there are thousands of Iraqi tanks in Kuwait only miles from the main Saudi Oil fields across the border, you've gone well beyond just a simple threat to Saudi Arabia. That was an intolerable situation that the world could not let stand do to the extreme dangers of having so many Iraqi troops so close to the worlds largest source of oil, and defended by a relatively small and inexperienced Saudi military at the time.
The same Arab experts who said Saddam would withdraw from Kuwait eventually were the same Arab experts who said that Saddam would NEVER invade Kuwait or another Arab neighbor. The United States and other countries did what they needed to do to protect global security in the 1991 Gulf War, and while it seems you would like to give Bin Ladin a veto over US military intervention in the Gulf, many people would never support a policy that endangered US security just to maybe appease a terrorist. The fact is, Bin Ladin's goals well beyond the Israely/Palestinian issue or his anger about US troops on Saudi soil for the 1991 Gulf War. Bin Ladin may co-opt other causes but his main goals are to return the Muslim world to the 13th century and destroy as much of the non-muslim world as he can.
No most of the Afghanis killing other Afghanis and Coalition troops are members of the Taliban. They are not foreigners or Arabs as you recently claimed in your last post. CENTCOM figures have already shown that Al Quada kills far more people in Iraq than anywhere else in the world. Foreign Al Quada fighters may only represent 5% of the of the fighters in Iraq, but they are allied with large numbers of sunni insurgents who work with them. Even if you added up all the people Killed by the Taliban and Al Quada in Afghanistan in a given year like 2007, its still less than 50% of the number of people that Al Quada killed in Iraq. Provided the United States does not withdraw prematurely from Iraq, the Awakening Councils will be reconciled with the Shia majority government which I again stress is composed not just of the Shia but also has Sunni, Kurdish and other political blocks as well.
The initial military combat phases in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999 were done primarily by the United States. The forces that eventually went in on the ground were large armored forces with tanks and other heavy equipment prepared to carry out any mission required including large scale combat missions as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the Kosovo war, if Serbia had not been swayed by 3 months of Airstrikes, the United States would have had to invaded Serbia with US ground forces just as it invaded Iraq. Bill Clinton was already starting to make plans for such an invasion when Milsovic finally gave in. Once the forces were on the ground in both Bosnia and Kosovo, the risk that fighting could flare up was always there. Bosnia and Kosovo were REAL Civil Wars in countries that had even less of a historical basis for existing than Iraq. It is complete contradictory to be supporting interventions and nation building activities in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan and not to be supporting the same efforts in Iraq, country from a security standpoint that is more important to the United States than the other three do to its geographic location and close proximity to much of the planets energy supply.
The reason that the United States has been able to reduce its presense in Bosnia and Kosovo is because conditions on the ground allowed it. The United States did not simply withdraw troops unilateraly without considering conditions on the ground as you a proposing be done in Iraq. When the Iraqi's have a military strong enough and a government strong enough to provide the security and services that Iraq needs is the time which the United States can begin to safely withdraw its troops. Withdrawing troops before Iraq is ready risk causing Iraq to collapse with serious consequences for the region and US Security.
The United States has a 60 year long history of friendship with Saudi Arabia that was started by Franklin Roosevelt. Yes there are extremist in Saudi Arabia like there are in several countries in the Middle East, but US ties with Saudi Arabia are very strong given the history of the relationship and the difficult financial and natural resource bonds that are difficult to break between the two countries. The United States has had bases and done training with various Arab countries all over the region. There are strong intelligence and diplomatic ties that have helped to role up Al Quada cells in many Arab countries over the past few years.
Jews have been living in Israel/Palestine for thousands of years, even if the numbers were very small from the 2nd century AD onwards. The area was Ottoman Empire land for 400 years from 1500 to the end of World War I. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the various ethnic and religious groups in the area all had a right to form their own nations. For nearly 30 years Arabs tried to suppress Jews right to form their own country on land they owned or had fairly purchased from other Arabs. After several Arab countries had been formed in the decades following World War I, Israel finally formed and declared its independence. The UN in 1947 had created a plan that divided Israel/Palestine based on where the various populations lived. It was a fair plan, but the Palestinians rejected it. When Israel declared its Independence, The Palestinians along with 5 Arab countries brutally attacked Israel in 1948. Israel in fighting for its survival that first year did acquire some more land, but the situation would never have occured if the Palestinians had accepted the UN partion plan of 1947. Its the best plan the Palestinians were ever offered and they rejected it, just as they have rejected every plan since then and always favored war and terrorism over political compromise. Their refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist and their engagement in brutal terrorism killing inocent civilians for the past 60 years has only worsned their position.
Israel had no choice in 1967 but to take the West Bank, Golan Heights and the Siani Pennisula. There are military realities do to Israel's small and thin geographic size that force it to take pre-emptive military action when certain military conditions across the border materialize because failure to do so would allow other countries to potentially cut Israel in half and overrun the country, which of course is what the Arabs were attempting to do in 1967 when Israely intelligence successfully detected it and eliminated the threat. Israel returned the Siani Pennisula to Egypt in the late 1970s when Egypt agreed to reconize Israel and not deploy certain military forces in the area. Israel is willing to return the Golan Heights to Syria when Syria agrees to reconize Israel and end its support for terrorist attacking Israel. Israel does support the idea of a Palestinian State, but not a terrorist state along its borders. Israel's security comes first, only then can land be given back and a Palestinian state formed. I find your opposition to Israel Ironic in light of the Democrats strong support for Israel including Joe Biden's support.
None of the UN resolutions that Israel is in violation of were passed under Chapter VII rules. They were passed under Chapter VI rules of the United Nations which allow enforcement only through diplomacy and do not allow military force to be used as a method of enforcement. The 17 UN resolutions passed against Saddam were ALL passed under Chapter VII rules of the United Nations which allow the resolutions to be enforced with military force. The resolutions passed against the Saddam were passed under Chapter VII rules because Saddam's violations were far more serious than anything Israel had done.
Thats because your simply unwilling to acknowledge the military, intelligence, and diplomatic benefits of having a friend like Israel in the Middle East that supports democracy and security and is against terrorism and warfare to overun other countries. Israel recognizes the other States of the region, unfortunately many of them don't recognize Israel. Israel is not the problem. They have every right to exist and even Joe Biden certainly agrees with that.
Again, the report only list small commando and special forces units. The number of actual US troops on the ground in Afghanistan increased with the Iraq war. The vast majority of US forces on the ground for the invasion of Iraq, like the 3rd Infantry Division Mechanized, the 4th Infantry Division Mechanized, the 1st Marine MEF and elements of the 101st Air Assualt Division and 82nd Airborne Division. These were the units in addition to the British 1st Armored Division that launched the invasion of Iraq. They were not in Afghanistan or diverted from Afghanistan.
Since September of 2007, violence in Iraq has led to Iraqi security and civilian deaths that have been consistently below 1,000 in every month up to date. Prior to that you had death rates for that group that were in excess of 3,000 per month. Most military commanders who have done multiple tours in Iraq have reported that violence levels resemble 2003 more than 2005 and obviously not 2007. The military on the ground in Iraq has seen the results an they report that it is working by every objective measure one can think of. You can find monthly violence results for Iraqi's as well as US casualty totals and similar figures for Afghanistan at www.icasualties.org .
Political progress has been made at the national level. The government is providing services for various regions. There has been progress on a new debathification law. Provincial elections are now scedual for the fall. That is progress regardless of whether you acknowledge it or not. The progress at the local level has been achieved by the work of the US military, not Biden's or some democrats plan in congress.
Its a bit odd that you support withdrawing from Iraq as a way to defeat Al Quada there, yet support the opposite plan when dealing with Al Quada in Afghanistan. Think about it. Your plans for bringing stability to Iraq completely contradict your plans for bringing stability to Afghanistan.
Its funny, but the Time article you site actually contradicts your statement that the "military is broken". Check out the third paragraph of the third page of your link here http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1606888-3,00.html. Notice the following qoute:
"Those in charge deny there's a crisis. Schoomaker, the Army's top general, served in the Vietnam-era Army. "I know what an Army that's near broken smells like, what it looks like, how it acts," he said in January. "Drug problems, race problems, insubordination — all kinds of things going on. We're nowhere near anything like that." General George Casey, who will succeed Schoomaker as the Army's top officer April 10, said at his confirmation hearing that "the Army is far from broken."
General George Casey says "THE ARMY IS FAR FROM BROKEN". Yes, the military is very stressed do to the level and length of deployments. Also, its true any time you deploy anywhere in the world for anything, you have less forces to deal with unexpected contingencies. But the US military is engaged in a conflict that is vital to US security right now, and the other potential contingencies that could develop around the world is currently remote.
Here is a good website with plenty of information on US defense spending, other spending, as a percentage of GDP as well as the annual budget per year since 1940:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/pdf/hist.pdf
Here is a chart of US public debt from 1791 to 2006:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:US_Public_debt_per_GDP_1791-2006.svg
Here is US unemployment rate by year:
http://www.miseryindex.us/urbyyear.asp
Here is US inflation rate by year:
http://www.miseryindex.us/irbyyear.asp
Here is the US poverty rate per year:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html
Bush has had to fight two wars and deal with the terrorist attack of 9/11 and the economic difficulties that caused. Clinton had an easy peaceful period of time in office relative to Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. Those factors account for the decreasing debt as a percentage of GDP in Clinton's 2nd administration and the rise during the Bush administration.
But the fact remains that when you take the average level of debt for all the Clinton years vs. all the Bush years as a percentage of GDP, it is has been lower under Bush.
The Average National Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP:
Clinton Years 64.5%
Bush Years 61.9%
Thats actually false, debt as percentage of GDP continued to rise during all four years of Clinton's first administration. The highest peacetime debt as a percentage of GDP was in 1996 when it reached 67.3%. Bill Clinton is the one that has the record, not Bush Sr. and Reagan when looking at the highest national debt as a percentage of GDP in a given year.
Well, when it comes to the facts, you've been misinformed. The highest peacetime debt level as a percentage of GDP was not under Bush Sr. or Reagan, it was under Bill Clinton 4 years after he was elected President. In 1996, the national debt as a percentage of GDP was 67.3%. That is higher than any other peacetime year in the history of the United States.
When you adjust for inflation, current Debt and Budget Deficit levels are not records, not even close. Helping to stabilize and secure the Persian Gulf area is a necessity for the United States. Nothing would harm the US economy and the rest of the world more than the seizure and sabotage of Persian Gulf Oil supply by Saddam. With the containment regime in shambles and every other method to remove him tried and failed, and with Saddam in violation of 17 UN Security Council Resolutions, it was not tolerable to let him remain in power. It was a necessity for US security to remove him. All of the pressing issues you site, would be in far worse shape if the United States failed to do what was necessary to secure and protect the Persian Gulf. The siezure and sabotage of Persian Gulf oil would cause a worldwide economic depression which would cause industrial society to collapse. As the price of Oil sky rockets, so would the price of food people buy as well as all kinds of other products. Business would fail, unemployment sky rockets. Millions of people lose their income those that still have money can't afford to buy the basics. There would be no money in such a situation for rebuilding infrastructure in the United States, the US military, providing Health Care and any of the other items that you site. Only a United States that has its interest at home and abroad secured can tackle these other issues you list. Security comes first, because the United States and other countries around the world need a secure global economy and energy supply in order to maintain their current wealth, standard of living, and society. Without those things, it would be impossible to address the issues you were listing.
The United States still has other threats to its security that it has to resolve or contain. Protecting Persian Gulf Oil supply has been in the national security interest of the United States for over 60 years now. Protecting global energy and the global economy will always be in the vital interest of the United States regardless of whether the United States is fighting a World War or facing a Super Power.
Thats absolutely false. The national Debt as a percentage of GDP was at its highest during World War II. National Debt currently under Bush involved in two wars is still less than the high point of the peacetime Clinton era in 1996 when it stood at 67.3%. Whats important is to keep the economy growing since Government revenue actually increases faster when the economy grows fast than when you increases taxes which eventually hurts economic growth there by actually reducing the amount of money that they government gets.
When you don't do what is necessary to secure Persian Gulf Oil supply as well as protecting other US security interest around the world, you make the economic collapse you speak of more likely. All of those things become more likely when you fail to secure the vital area's of the world that the global economy is dependent upon.
Yes, Clinton did improve the economy during the relative peaceful time in office. Its easy to balance the budget an do such things when you don't have to fight two wars. I never stated that Clinton did not do good things for the economy. At the same time, if your being honest and objective, you have to acknowledge that what Bush has done with the economy is excellent given the wars, Terrorist attacks and economic slow downs he has had to deal with.
Bush's Unemployment rate is roughly equal or actually better than Clintons average unemployment rate:
Average Annual Unemployment Rate:
Clinton Years 5.21%
Bush Years 5.20%
Average Inflation rate during the Bush years is almost as good as the Clinton years:
Average Annual Inflation Rate:
Clinton Years 2.60%
Bush Years 2.69%
The average poverty rate during the Bush years has been much better than it was during the Clinton years:
Average Annual Poverty Rate:
Clinton Years 13.3%
Bush Years 12.3%
Clinton did have a better GDP growth rate, but not by much:
Average GDP growth rate:
Clinton Years 5.4%
Bush Years 4.8%
And as I have already stated before, Debt as a percentage of GDP has been lower under Bush than it was under Clinton despite the fact that Bush has been fighting Two wars while during the Clinton years, the country was primarily at peace.
The Average National Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP:
Clinton Years 64.5%
Bush Years 61.9%
Both US real GDP and real GDP per capita have grown during the Bush administration. US Standard of living as measured by the UN Human Development Index is higher now than it was during the Clinton administration.
If your objective and honest in your research, you'll find that Bush has maintained an impressive economy despite harder times. His numbers in terms of average debt as a percentage of GDP and the average rate of poverty beat the Clinton numbers. Those are facts that cannot be disputed. Even in the area's where Clinton did better on GDP growth, Inflation or about the same in Unemployment, Bush's numbers by any historical standard are very good.
I already explained the Condi Rice/ Colin Powell quotes above. That the Iraqi military had not ability to launch an attack on Kuwait is just grossly incorrect. Colin Powell has already stated that those Cherry picked qoutes were mis-interpreted. Colin Powell to this day still supports the removal of Saddam from power. The qoutes you report also have plenty of what can only be viewed as mis-statements or an error in reporting. The idea that the United States was preventing Iraq from using its arms or its military equipment is simply, laughably false. If any of these things were true, the United States would not have had to rush over 100,000 troops to the Persian Gulf in late 1994 in response to two Republican Guard Divisions moving close to the border with Kuwait.
Everything I explained on the debt and economy are supported by factual indisputable numbers.
Only trying to make the reading and response easier for you. If you carefully look at my response you'll find that there are plenty of facts you seem unwilling to acknowledge or consider. In addition, some of your own "facts" statements, and sources, actually have ended up contradicting what you had to say like claiming that the US military is broken and then siting a source in which the Army's top General says the Army is "far from being broken".
The conflicts are similar in the sense that they involved nation building and resolving sectarian conflicts which in this case involved a real civil war. Its rather contradictory to be supporting US policy in Bosnia and Kosovo yet challenging the same methods being used and looking at the some of the similar problems of nation building and claiming it can't be done or that its not in the US interest to do it. I NEVER stated that the numbers of troops involved or the money spent was the same.
If you were to actually objectively look at Iraqi military strength consider not only the types of equipment they have, but their numbers, training, combat experience, geographic location, close proximity to the world energy supplies, you might begin to understand what I'm talking about. Everyone in the US military and intelligence community recognized Saddam as both a regional threat, and a global threat do to his potential ability to sieze or sabotage where the world gets the majority of its energy supplies from. You don't have to have a continent conquering military to be able to threaten the planet, when your military is more than large enough to overrun a few hundred miles of flat sand that possess the vital energy reserves that the world depends on for the global economy.
Iraq's number of 430,000 men, 2,800 tanks, 2,100 artillery pieces and 120 Helicopters exceed any single Persian Gulf country south of Iraq in the Gulf Cooperation Council or even when you combine the military forces of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emarites.
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Salome
you are what you is
I thought even the people who voted for Bush thought he was an idiot with a group of smart people around him
don't know about which bit they were wrong
don't know about which bit they were wrong
Bluer White
New Yorker
Strongbow, your analysis in this thread has been very interesting and informative. Thanks for taking the time to post.
deep
Blue Crack Addict
If the average American knew how much he sacrificed for some mom whose son may have recently died
his poll numbers would be much higher.
MadelynIris
Refugee
I plan to play lots of golf while Im in Iraq.
ntalwar
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Strongbow said:
That's really misleading - Reagan/Bush #s spiked after Carter, and Clinton was flat to down.
OP
OP
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
i suppose that when you're totally deranged, then all those who take an even slightly different approach than you are all knock-kneed, simpering Nevil Chamberlins?
Bush at the Knesset:
[q]Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.[/q]
it's always 1939, isn't it? everyone bad is Hitler. the only solution is to kill them before they can start.
Bush at the Knesset:
[q]Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.[/q]
it's always 1939, isn't it? everyone bad is Hitler. the only solution is to kill them before they can start.
deep
Blue Crack Addict
Obama loses big here
when he says he wants to meet with this guy.
when he says he wants to meet with this guy.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
It's pretty sad when anti-Obama left leaning folks are jumping on this and even Tucker Carlson said Bush was out of line and that talks with leaders like this have been done in the past by both liberals and conservatives.
This election is getting pathetic.
This election is getting pathetic.
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
ntalwar said:
That's really misleading - Reagan/Bush #s spiked after Carter, and Clinton was flat to down.
Strongbow caught out bullshitting again, quel surprise.
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