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July 3, 2008 at 5:34 pm #587383
AnonymousInactiveIf you want to take a look at what happened within those “top-secret” meetings, and what options our Government faced, prior to the US going to war with Iraq, read the following link for an interesting perspective:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121504452359324921.html
July 3, 2008 at 5:39 pm #630023
JimmyGMemberJuly 3, 2008 at 5:47 pm #630024
KenParticipantConsider the source.
I suspect much the time he does not realize he is lying. You have linked to the person most likely to confuse reality and fantasy on the planet.
Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, whom most of you probably know Tommy Franks said was the stupidest blankety-blank man in the world. He was. Let me testify to that. He was. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man.
— Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff
From the condensed Woodward book Gen Tommy Franks speaking…
Page 281: On Douglas Feith, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy: “I have to deal with the fxxking stupidest guy on the face of the earth almost every day.”
Of all the revelations that have surfaced about the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse scandal so far, the least surprising is that Douglas Feith may be partly responsible. Not a single Iraq war screw-up has gone by without someone tagging Feith—who, as the Defense Department’s undersecretary for policy, is the Pentagon’s No. 3 civilian, after Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz—as the guy to blame. Feith, who ranks with Wolfowitz in purity of neoconservative fervor, has turned out to be Michael Dukakis in reverse: ideology without competence.
It’s not that the 50-year-old Feith is at fault for everything that’s gone wrong in Iraq. He’s only tangentially related to the mystery of the missing weapons of mass destruction, for example. (Though it’s a significant tangent: An anonymous “Pentagon insider” told the Washington Times last year that Feith was the person who urged the Bush administration to make Saddam’s WMD the chief public rationale for going to war immediately.) Nor was it Feith who made the decision to commit fewer troops than the generals requested. (Though Feith did give the most honest explanation for the decision, saying last year that it “makes our military less usable” if hundreds of thousands of troops are needed to fight wars.) But if he isn’t fully culpable for all these fiascos, he’s still implicated in them somehow. He’s a leading indicator, like a falling Dow—something that correlates with but does not cause disaster
http://www.slate.com/id/2100899/
July 3, 2008 at 5:53 pm #630025
BernickiMemberI always did, and I always will.
July 3, 2008 at 6:09 pm #630026
ErikParticipantAnd Dougie can you tell us where your real allegiance is?
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Central_Asia_watch/Is_Iran_Next.html
July 3, 2008 at 6:13 pm #630027
JimmyGMemberUsing Feith to try to justify the war is like using Michelle Malkin to justify internment of the Japanese during WWII.
July 3, 2008 at 6:24 pm #630028
AnonymousInactiveI understand the need to debunk the author, but by solely focusing on that alone, you may not consider the points that are made.
“1.) Saddam was a threat to U.S. interests before 9/11,
2.) The threat of renewed aggression by Saddam was more troubling and urgent after 9/11,
3.) To contain the threat from Saddam, all reasonable means short of war had been tried unsuccessfully for a dozen years,
4.) While there were large risks involved in a war, the risks of leaving Saddam in power were even larger,
5.) America after 9/11 had a lower tolerance for such dangers.”
These points are all valid and factual.
“President Bush inherited a worrisome Iraq problem from Bill Clinton and from his own father. Saddam had systematically undermined the measures the U.N. Security Council put in place after the Gulf War to contain his regime.”
Al Qaeda is not the only terrorist group.
July 3, 2008 at 6:59 pm #630029
JimmyGMemberJust because Feith asserts your listed 1-4 above doesn’t make them true assertions or facts.
As to #5, a “lower tolerance” is not a reason to go to war.
July 3, 2008 at 7:12 pm #630030
addParticipantIf you want to get technical, none of those points listed are actually “fact”. They are conclusions or judgements based on facts, but they are not facts by themselves. Whether or not those are sound conclusions/judgements or assertions is a whole other issue!
July 3, 2008 at 7:23 pm #630031
KenParticipantNR.
Lest we be forced to point out something in language strong enough to irritate our hosts, perhaps you should admit that your strength is not in current events as you have admitted to lacking a grounding in history.
Furthermore.
The concept of a war on a noun as justification for taking over a country which never threatened, attempted or could in its rulers wildest dreams harm the United States, is so alien to rational human beings that it could only come to fruition by propaganda of the most blatant sort. (Further details omitted lest we invoke Godwin’s Law and lose this thread too)
Google the following:
Office of special plans, Chalabi, Curveball, Yellow cake forgery, petrodollar OPEC, Iraq sanctions.
And read this from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
http://intelligence.senate.gov/pubcurrent.html
Saddam and Iraq were a very real threat to the Multinational Oil companies and the petro dollar monopoly the US enjoyed due to the OPEC nations use of the dollar as official currency.
In late September of 2000 Saddam Hussein started selling oil for Euros in defiance of the monopoly.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2000/1101baghdad.htm
The rest is history, and sadly current events.
July 3, 2008 at 7:29 pm #630032
RSMemberYeah, wait a minute- the “threat” from Saddam? When we invaded we promptly discovered the total lack of WMDs and an infrastructure held together with duct tape and shoe strings under the facade of his regime. He was a threat to his own people, clearly, and an all-around sucky dude, but so is Mugabe and as far as I know there’s no effort to trump up international terrorism charges against him in this climate of “lower tolerance for such dangers.” Maybe if Americans could find Mugabe’s country on a map or discover some untapped oil it would make a difference.
July 3, 2008 at 7:37 pm #630033
AnonymousInactiveOk, Ken, I am extremely comfortable in admitting that I am no intellect in regards to history or current events.
You, however seem to be and I appreciate learning from you, even if it is mostly liberal quotes and links that you share.
I do look at everything that is shared on this forum, and in doing so hope to learn more and more everyday. I think looking at BOTH sides and ALL opinions is a good start in becoming further educated.
Unfortunately, not everyone chooses to do that and, therefore, when I feel that a valid point is being made, it is first and foremost tossed out and deemed inaccurate or untrue.
Being able to look at all sides to an issue is where true intelligence is gained. I’ll be the first to admit my shortcomings (although, you beat me to it here), but at least I’m continuing to learn.
JimmyG – I agree that because someone “asserts” something to be true, it doesn’t make it so. Please explain, or direct me to where, these points are contradicted.
And, thank you to those who took the time to read what I shared, even after seeing who wrote it.
July 3, 2008 at 8:05 pm #630034
AnonymousInactiveNR – you rock!
July 3, 2008 at 8:10 pm #630035
JimmyGMemberSorry NR, I don’t want to get into a long hashed out political debate with you or anyone else here. I think this is the 1st political thread in a long while here on WSB that I’ve posted on.
Frankly they bore me as it’s just like arguing religion and abortion–akin to striking 2 bricks togehter–and about as useful.
I’m not going to change your mind about the validity of the war, and you won’t change my opinion about it.
For every “fact” you can dig up and link to, I can do the reverse. So where does it get anyone?
With me it gets a big fat yawn. I would much prefer to argue the relative merits of soft serve versus hard ice cream.
July 3, 2008 at 8:38 pm #630036
AnonymousInactiveJimmG – LOL! I agree. I’m not very political, myself, but in this extremely important election year, I’m trying to learn everything I can.
Of course, posting a different school of thought here on this forum, in turn, provides me a lot of information as my points are always refuted.
And, apologies to put you, personally, on the spot. I want to be shown where those points are factually contradicted. I’m sure someone here would be up to the challenge.
wsblover – You’re my new best friend!
July 3, 2008 at 11:02 pm #630037
KayleighMembero.m.g.
July 3, 2008 at 11:10 pm #630038
JiggersMemberBush is such and idiot do you realize that we could have had both BinLaden and Saddam in one fail swoop? Bush decided to make a hard left and turn into Iraq when they were actually on the heels of following BinLaden in Tora Bora. It was too difficult in tracking down Bin Laden but easier to find Saddam.
July 3, 2008 at 11:25 pm #630039
JoBParticipantNewResident…
Cudos to you. you sought a source from a more “balanced” republican… and not an extremist… great job!
however, since Doug Feith was in charge of selling the war to the American Public in the first place.. he has a pretty big vested interest in justifying what he did.
was Saddam a pain in the .. you know… ???
Yup, he was. He was also an all round bad guy and terrorized his own people.
But a terrorist threat? Not unless you include terrorizing his own people.
He simply didn’t have the resources… the reasonable means we had been trying were finally taking their toll and it was all he could do to hold his country together and hope none of his neighbors decided to return the favor and invade.
We were successfully negotiating with Saddam two weeks before the invasion.
It was actually a bigger threat to american security to invade Iraq.
if nothing else, it meant that we were using our military resources and therefore didn’t have resources left to actively pursue the real terrorists.
At worst, the invasion generated more terrorists than it killed… and some of them are likely planning attacks against us as we speak.
The only statement from those you listed above that i think we can agree is true is the last…
America was more likely to agree to the invasion than at any other time in our history. We wanted retaliation.. and i think Saddam looked as good as any…
However, if Bush hadn’t erroneously tied Saddam to 911, i think he would have had a much harder time selling this war.
July 3, 2008 at 11:45 pm #630040
elgregoMember1.) Saddam was a threat to U.S. interests before 9/11,
2.) The threat of renewed aggression by Saddam was more troubling and urgent after 9/11,
3.) To contain the threat from Saddam, all reasonable means short of war had been tried unsuccessfully for a dozen years,
4.) While there were large risks involved in a war, the risks of leaving Saddam in power were even larger,
5.) America after 9/11 had a lower tolerance for such dangers.”
I was in the Army from 1995 till 2001. This included a tour of duty in Kuwait in 2000, where I had a frontline view watching aircraft taking off and patrolling the No-Fly Zone every day (and often returning without their ordnance – meaning, they dropped it over Iraq). I am now in the Navy Reserve.
I’ve never encountered anyone in uniform who ever thought Saddam was a threat. After the ’91 war, they were gutted, and not even able to control their own internal security. If Iraq was a threat to anybody, how come they couldn’t even kick out the Kurds in the North, nevermind attack the Kuwaitis or Saudis who had many hundreds of tanks and dozens of warplanes that were as good or better than the Coalition had in ’91. In addition, the constant patrolling of Iraqi airspace by US/UK warplanes destroyed damn near anything that moved – in many ways, the war didn’t end in ’91, but just reverted to daily small scale bombing over 2/3rds of Iraq. Iraq didn’t even have an air force to contest those no-fly zones.
Fact of the matter is that the only terror group that can be linked to Saddam is Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, who were an anti-Iranian terror group (and who were proctected by the American Army until at least last year – maybe even today).
What other risks were there to leave Saddam in power? And don’t you dare suggest that we went into Iraq for humanitarian reasons.
All of his five points basically say the same thing: “We think Saddam is a threat” when, in fact, he controlled very little of his country outside of Baghdad.
Fact of the matter is, NR, that you have no idea what you’re talking about and you blindly trust people in positions of authority without bothering to research the facts.
July 3, 2008 at 11:52 pm #630041
cjboffoliParticipantI have a healthy amount of disappointment in the capabilities and motivations of my government. But I always have such a hard time co-signing sentiments that President Bush and his cronies A. are idiots or B. deliberately lied for some kind of economic gain. Those arguments seem too simplistic to me.
If you’re going to make these assertions convincingly in relation to a discussion of the Iraq war it seems necessary to also recognize that Saddam Hussein played cat and mouse with the UN weapons inspectors for the better part of a decade. If he didn’t have WMDs then why didn’t he just cooperate with the UN so the inspectors would leave? Instead he stonewalled and allowed his people to suffer under relentless sanctions. The truth is that we knew he had WMDs because he used them against Iran and the Kurds and because US and German chemical companies sold him the chemicals that were used to manufacture those WMDs.
Iraq was sitting on the third largest proven oil reserves in the world and yet had ambitions for a nuclear energy program (as Iran does now). Why do countries with massive amounts of oil need nuclear energy? (Hint: They don’t). Even if you take the genocide of the Kurds off the table, Hussein invaded Kuwait by force. There were a lot of reasons why it would have been beneficial to remove such a destabilizing tyrant.
With that said, I’m not a fan of military action and war. Diplomacy is always a better way to go. But what do you do when diplomacy fails to produce results? The US tried diplomacy for twelve years under three presidents. One of the reasons it failed in this case was because the European Union was fractuous. Too many countries had their own economic interests in Iraq to support putting any muscle behind the UN Security Council resolutions. It is much easier to let the US do the heavy lifting, to take all the blame and then claim to hate us. When US troops went into Iraq they discovered all kinds of Italian and French weapon systems. The Europeans are anti-war but they’re pro-commerce. And all of the reasons they supposedly hate us (based mostly on outdated stereotypes and a lack of American Studies programs anywhere in Europe) are usually more based in their own national impotence.
It is an understatement to say that President Bush and the Iraq War are unpopular. But I think it is unfair to assign him with all the blame. The US and many European nations completely ignored the Middle East for centuries except to exploit its resources. That region’s problems and issues (some we’ve caused, some home-grown) have only festered as we’ve put our collective heads in the sand while we’ve been content with “popular” presidents who showed little stomach for difficult decisions and who chose to simply lead by polls all the while ensuring a steady supply of 99 cent gasoline.
I didn’t vote for Bush but I’m really weary of the blind hatred of the man and his presidency especially when the issues that seem to fuel this mountain of negativity are so much more complex. It seems to me as though it would be a better use of time and energy to look forward and support change
July 3, 2008 at 11:57 pm #630042
JoBParticipantelgrego…
NewResident is making a real effort to seek out less extreme resources and learn from the more moderate voices on both sides of this issue…
she is seeking out the facts…
I think it is difficult to know what to think and who to believe when so much of the rationalization literature that is out now agrees with what we have heard from our national press. You really have to work to find more in-depth information.
But it is being published now.. even by some republicans…
It is going to take some time to get this message across to anyone who hasn’t already been informed.
There is simply too much misinformation that has to be overcome.
July 4, 2008 at 12:08 am #630043
JoBParticipantcjboffoli…
we can’t undo what has already been done… so we have no choice but to figure out what to do now.
but to do that.. we have to find out what has been done. so we can unravel the mess it has made.
while i agree it is simplistic to just blame Bush & his cronies as idiots (i don’t believe they are) or self interested (i do believe they are that)..
it is also simplistic to blame Europe’s anti-American bias on their mercenary interests and a lack of American studies programs.
Much of Saddam’s arsenal was sold to him by the US military and American companies… We have ourselves to blame as much as we can blame the mercenary interests in the EU for arming Saddam.
As for the anti-American bias… it is quite possible we have created a good deal of it by changing our own policies in regards to economics and weapons… and refusing to sign onto international agreements regarding nuclear weapons and the environment…
and yes, Iraq does sit on a lot of oil.. and that does seem to be an issue, doesn’t it.
July 4, 2008 at 12:09 am #630044
elgregoMemberSorry, I don’t have sympathy for people that have opinions that they can’t justify.
July 4, 2008 at 12:16 am #630045
JoBParticipantelgrego..
it’s hard, isn’t it. Those of us who figured out this was a bad deal early on have still had to pay the bill for a war we never thought was in America’s best interests.. oil or no oil…
i too get very impatient…
but, getting us out of this mess will take more than just those of us who were too sensible in the first place to get into it… and the more we blame them for not looking beyond the evening news, the longer it will take.
don’t mistake my pragmatism for sympathy…
but i am an optomist… i value progress.. no matter how small…
July 4, 2008 at 12:19 am #630046
B-squaredParticipantThanks elgrego. excellent points.
Saddam was what we helped him to become, and we encouraged him when it suited us. just like many other very bad men we either helped put in place or propped up to further “american interests”. we have a long history of this all over the world, and few americans have even the slightest clue what goes on in this regard. it’s apparent that “american interests” and peace are mutually exclusive. yes, the iraq ‘invasion’ was unnecessary. technically i don’t think it is a war.
oh, and hard ice cream over softserve, anytime!
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