MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
lol, at some point I'll figure out what that means. I'm tired.
MrsSpringsteen said:Loyalty and respect is earned. He serves at our (dis)pleasure, it's our right to say what we want.
71 vs 28-hmm, still sounds bad to me no matter how you spin it.
Strongbow said:
Just to remind you, Bush was re-elected President of the country after his first four years in office by the first majority popular vote since 1988. Thats far more significant than any cherry picked poll number.
Strongbow said:
Just to remind you, Bush was re-elected President of the country after his first four years in office by the first majority popular vote since 1988. Thats far more significant than any cherry picked poll number.
Strongbow said:What is important to the United States and the world in this region? Oil.
anitram said:
At last!
Irvine511 said:
you're out of arguments, aren't you?
we know the risks and consequences of continuing the same failed policies.
AchtungBono said:
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.
AchtungBono said: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.
AchtungBono said: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.
U2387 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.
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.
Of course, Bush is going after phantom weapons in Iran and Iraq and completely ignoring the real threats.
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.
WE NEEDED JOE BIDEN BUT I DIGRESS
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.
U2387 said:
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.
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.
Strongbow 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:
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 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.
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.Scott Ritter, the head weapons inspector has said that Iraq was disarmed by 1998,
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. The facts have proven him right.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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 spending it 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.
U2387 said: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.
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.
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-dy...-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...up-in-iraq.html http://www.reuters.com/article/topN...eedName=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
As for budget and the economy, dont bother to crunch phony numbers, I will do the real ones for you:
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...-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.
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?
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. QUOTE]
I've listed plenty of facts and have explained how they are relevent to the conclusions that the US military and many in the intelligence community as well as the President have made about Saddam, the threat from Saddam, and the need to remove him from power. Unfortunately, you do not appear in acknowledging these facts, and your above qoute seems to show your more interested in wild speculation about another member of the forum rather than a thoughtful discussion on the thread topic.
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.
Few people are claiming that the world would be safer with Saddam still in power. The intelligence and facts show that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia no longer face the larged armed threat from Iraq that they did prior to the March 2003 invasion. They no longer face a dicator who had invaded and attacked four different countries, used WMD more times than any leader in history and threatened the planets key oil reserves with siezure and sabotage. Al Quada had its main base destroyed in Afghanistan, has had thousands of its followers either killed or captured around the world. The Taliban is out of power in Afghanistan, and Al Quada's resurgence in Iraq has been rolled back by the US military surge of 2007-2008. US military intervention in both Iraq and Afghanistan has made the United States, the region and the world safer, but removing two violent and threatening regimes who were bent on either dominating their neighbors and causing problems to the rest of the world.
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.
If you look at those numbers, you would find my statements about the average debt as a percentage of GDP during the Clinton administration was higher than during the Bush administration. Bush also had better average numbers on poverty, unemployment, and similar numbers on GDP growth and inflation.
Bush: I quit golf over Iraq war
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush said in an interview out Tuesday that he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for the families of US soldiers killed in the conflict in Iraq, now in its sixth year.
"I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal," he said in an interview for Yahoo! News and Politico magazine.
"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them."
Wipe Israel 'off the map' Iranian says
New leader revives an old rhetorical tack
By Nazila Fathi
TEHRAN: Iran's conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Wednesdaythat Israel must be "wiped off the map" and that attacks by Palestinians would destroy it, the ISNA press agency reported.
Ahmadinejad was speaking to an audience of about 4,000 students at a program called "The World Without Zionism," in preparation for an annual anti-Israel demonstration on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.
ntalwar said: