Still Think The War Was Unnecessary?

[Ken]

Just a note. Orrin Hatch is certifiably insane. Interestingly this does not disqualify him from representing his constituents in Utah.

Quoting Hatch on anything is not evidence that any of it might be true and actually argues against that assumption.

The IAEC and the UN inspectors knew with 90% certainty that the Iraq atomic program was a sham

and that what WMD’s they could not prove had been destroyed in 93 was mainly due to flawed record-keeping and a desire by Iraq scientist to keep their paychecks flowing from Saddam.

The Cheney doctrine of 1% chance, was the core of the push to pre-emptive war and most of the lies, misinterpretation and disregard of the facts stemmed from that bit of insanity.

What Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said about Saddam Hussein’s relationship with al-Qaeda on Saturday:http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060219/NEWS01/602190310/1002

Nobody denies that [Saddam Hussein] was supporting al-Qaeda…Well, I shouldn’t say nobody. Nobody with brains.

What the bi-partisan 9-11 commission said about Saddam Hussein’s relationship with al-Qaeda:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html

The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration’s main justifications for the war in Iraq.

Hatch made his remarks at an invitation-only luncheon. They’ve only been reported in a small Utah paper, The St. George Daily Spectrum.

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[JoB]

Orin Hatch is a bit over-zealous in his views:)

yes ken.. i know you think that is a gross understatement ;->

I wish i could say that John McCain’s good sense kept him from joining that dissenting view.. but most likely it was his presidential aspirations:)

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[RS]

Oh thank you Ken. I was wondering when someone was going to mention that it was ORIN HATCH, aka Total Nutjob, who wrote that opinion! NR said early on that she “understand the need to debunk the author, but by solely focusing on that alone, you may not consider the points that are made.” Funny, I think that determining that the author is not a reliable source pretty much takes care of any points they make, be it Feith or Hatch!

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[Anonymous]

NR, your original question *Still Think The War Was Unnecessary?* implies you believe it was necessary and that your read of the senate intelligence report supports that view.

The report actually concludes that Bush and Cheney repeatedly overstated the threat posed by Saddam in the run up to the war. It agrees there were some intelligence supporting a threat, but mostly concentrates on how the administration was completely remiss in choosing to not evaluate or acknowledge all the intelligence showing no threat by Saddam or Iraq.

Essentially, Bush/Cheney found intelligence to support their world view, and ignored all other intelligence.

The quotes you cite from Orin Hatch et al, are from the rebuttal to the final report by those who disagree from the conclusions. That are not the committee’s actual conclusions.

Even allowing for the dissenting view, they don’t disagree that the intelligence used to justify war was eventually found to be discredited (thus negating the necessity for war), they just blame the CIA for giving Bush bad information.

It seems to me that almost everyone agrees the war was unnecessary and a mistake. The dispute seems to surround who is to blame. Democrats believe the fault lies with Bush/Cheney. Republicans want to blame the intelligence community.

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[Anonymous]

“Essentially, Bush/Cheney found intelligence to support their world view, and ignored all other intelligence.”

JT – Maybe, did you consider, that they were looking at what information was provided to them, not just “looking” for something? And, also consider that we had just been attacked like never before in our history.

To insinuate that the current Administration was “looking” to go to war, feeds into the “blaming” Bush vehicle.

This report was broken down into sections. I see, at the end of almost every section, that the intelligence information that Bush/Cheney were responding to was substantiated.

And, more important, the fact that this report was even conducted was a waste of valuable intelligence time and recourses. But, it’s what the Democrats wanted to do. No one is talking about the endless interviewing that should have taken place and didn’t. Why did the Democrats (majority) push for interviews and then back off?

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[Anonymous]

Ken – I’m curious what Republicans are NOT “insane” or “stupid” in your eyes, if any?

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[JanS]

NR…I have a question for you. You have asked people on here if they still feel the war in Iraq was unnecessary, and have gotten a resounding yes from most. My question is this…if you feel that those who feel it was/is unnecessary are wrong, does that imply that you feel it was/is necessary, and can you tell us your reasons why you do? I’m looking for your feelings, your words, not anything quoted from the committee report, or someone else’s published opinion. I truly want to know what you think.OK?

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[angelescrest]

There is nothing like living in the Middle East to understand what grave mistakes were made by this administration. Period.

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[RS]

NR, since you want to increase your knowledge base, you should look up Neoconservatism, Irving Kristol and The Bush Doctrine. Then you might not be so quick to condemn people saying that Bush was looking to go to war.

In 2002 the National Security Strategy clearly stated: “We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed… even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack… The United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.”

The major tenet of neoconservatism is that the US should actively promote liberal democracy around the world. Iraq was seen as the cornerstone of the plan to bring democracy to the middle east. So yes, I think the Bush Doctrine gives credence, in his own words, to the “insinuation” that the administration was looking to go to war.

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[Ken]

http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp_moveon/index.html

Here is an article I suspect you might have missed.

The new Pentagon papers

A high-ranking military officer reveals how Defense Department extremists suppressed information and twisted the truth to drive the country to war.

By Karen Kwiatkowski

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[Ken]

Sane Republicans seem to have been more prevalent in the not to distant past.

A few from my archives:

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the (Republican) party, and they are sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they cannot and will not compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.” — Barry Goldwater

“I am a conservative Republican,” Barry Goldwater wrote in a 1994 Washington Post essay, “but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state.”

When Sandra Day O’Connor was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1981, some Religious Right leaders suspected she might be too moderate on abortion and other social concerns. Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell told the news media that “every good Christian should be concerned.” Replied Goldwater, “Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell’s ass.”

The five-term U.S. senator from Arizona was equally unimpressed with TV preacher Pat Robertson. When Robertson sought the GOP nomination for president in 1988, Goldwater wasn’t about to say amen. “I believe in separation of church and state,” observed Goldwater. “Now, he doesn’t believe that . . . I just don’t think he should be running.”

A few years later he told The Advocate, “I don’t have any respect for the Religious Right. There is no place in this country for practicing religion in politics. That goes for Falwell, Robertson and all the rest of these political preachers. They are a detriment to the country.”

While some Americans might find Goldwater’s stand against all interaction between religion and politics too sweeping, many would agree with his strong commitment to individual freedom of conscience on issues as diverse as religion in schools, gay rights or abortion. In 1994 he told The Los Angeles Times, “A lot of so-called conservatives don’t know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right.”

Goldwater, an Episcopalian, had theological differences with greedy TV preachers. “I look at these religious television shows,” he said, “and they are raising big money on God. One million, three million, five million – they brag about it. I don’t believe in that. It’s not a very religious thing to do.”

But Goldwater was also deeply worried about the Religious Rights long-term impact on his beloved GOP. “If they succeed in establishing religion as a basic Republican Party tenet,” he told U.S. News & World Report in 1994, “they could do us in.” In an interview with The Post that same year, Goldwater observed, “When you say ‘radical right’ today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.”

But most importantly, Goldwater was deeply concerned about the Religious Rights relentless war on the Constitution and basic American freedoms. In a Sept. 15, 1981 senate speech, Goldwater noted that Falwell’s Moral Majority, anti-abortion groups and other Religious Right outfits were sometimes referred to in the press as the “New Right” and the “New Conservatism.” Responded Goldwater, “Well, I’ve spent quite a number of years carrying the flag of the ‘Old Conservatism.’ And I can say with conviction that the religious issues of these groups have little or nothing to do with conservative or liberal politics. The uncompromising position of these groups is a divisive element that could tear apart the very spirit of our representative system, if they gain sufficient strength.” Insisted Goldwater, “Being a conservative in America traditionally has meant that one holds a deep, abiding respect for the Constitution. We conservatives believe sincerely in the integrity of the Constitution. We treasure the freedoms that document protects. . . “By maintaining the separation of church and state,” he explained, “the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars . . . Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?”

Goldwater concluded with a warming to the American people. “The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others,” { he said,} “unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives. . . We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn’t stop now” { he insisted}. “To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower on guarding against influence taken by the Military Industrial Complex (and more):

“..This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together…”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961

http://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu/farewell.htm

“If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They’ll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads.”

— Dwight Eisenhower

“As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”

— Dwight David Eisenhower (Farewell Address to the Nation, Jan. 17, 1961)

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again…. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt…a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

–Eisenhower wrote his brother Edgar on May 2, l956:

“Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionist and rebel men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”

~ Dwight Eisenhower

“Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear — kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor — with the cry of grave national emergency… Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.”

— General Douglas MacArthur, 1957

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official…

— Theodore Roosevelt

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[JanS]

Ken..as always, thank you for that…those last 2 quotes will stay with me…

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[JoB]

NewResident…

i just spent an hour on the internet looking for those elected republicans i could point to as moderate Republicans… and i made a startling discovery… most of them are either retiring or not expected to survive the coming election.

along the way, i realized the most helpful thing i could do is refer you to the Wikipedia page on factions in the Republican party…

the Republican party of my youth… and those republicans i could truly admire… appear to be long gone… or on the way out the door this fall.

and that’s not a good thing… because those were the members of the party who inspired some pretty great legislation…

you might also look at the demographic divide between republicans and democrats… it doesn’t bode well for them this fall.

thsoe factions are interesting reading… i think i will go look up the same in my party…

i have been appalled that the “center” of my party is moving to stand in the shoes that moderate republicans once filled….

and even more appalled at what now passes for a moderate republican…

thanks for being the thorn that caused me look further.

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[Anonymous]

Hi JanS – Thank you for asking.

I would not say that I currently support the war or believe the war, NOW, is necessary.

I think that at the time the U.S. decided to go to war, it was necessary. Our intelligence supported that. It was voted for.

However, I think it is very easy to know what we know now, look back and say, no, we should NOT have gone to war. And then it is even EASIER to blame Bush for deciding to go to war (remember, it was voted for, it was not Bush’s unanimous decision).

I remember EVERYONE wanting to go to war back in ’01. After we had been attacked.

I have a problem with an immediate end to the war because I believe that would be dangerous and not in our best interest. I think that we should withdraw over time (even Obama is proposing a 16 month time frame). And, mostly, I think that would be dishonorable for those who have fought there.

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[RS]

Yeah, “everyone” wanted to go to war in ’01… against the Taliban. In Afghanistan. BIG difference!

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[Anonymous]

I remember talk of nuclear programs, biochemical weapons, WMDs, providing terrorist groups safe havens, Saddam not being forthcoming….

That is what I’m referring to. And that is exactly where the forgetting occurs. Of course we wanted to find Bin Laden (of course we still do), but there were so many other issues to be considered at that time.

That is what everyone forgets.

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[JoB]

NewResident..

you remember all of that talk because that was what was leaked to the press.. any intelligence that even vaguely supported a war in Iraq regardless of the agreement in the intelligence community as to the validity of the information.

And the press looked no further.. they actively promoted this war.

Unfortunately.. this same information was what was shown to our congress…

thus.. years later you have an astounding number of Americans who still believe that Saddam had something to do with 911.

That is a direct result of feeding the American public misinformation… (the Administration generally didn’t tell total untruths when releasing information… somewhere there was something which substantiated the information they leaked) … but they didn’t tell the truth either. They withheld information by intent.. which makes it a lie. and then, once the press had begun to publish the lie. they repeated it… and kept repeating it long after the evidence proved them wrong.

And.. even then.. not EVERYBODY thought we should be invading Iraq.

I didn’t and i know a lot of people like me who just plain didn’t buy it.

There was a demonstration against the war on the plaza in Washington that was attended by 100s of thousands of people. Of course, you didn’t hear about that because the press didn’t cover it… and when they did.. they grossly underestimated the number of people who attended.

As for our politicians… whether they thought it was a popular train wreck that was going to happen no matter what they did and they worried about re-election… or they thought it was justified with the information they were given.. or whether they just plain thought putting Saddam out of business was a good idea.. most of them signed on.

But again.. not everybody.

The most ludicrous idea presented was the idea that we would be in and out of there in a heartbeat.. with the Iraqi people cheering and settling into Western Style democracy.. so grateful they handed oil leases over to American companies and granted long term leases on bases like they were party favors.

Dick Cheney knew it wasn’t so. He explained why in some detail when Bush Sr withdrew from the mess that is Iraq after punishing Saddam for his invasion of Kuwait.

The situation hadn’t changed.. but the stakes had… better payoff for the gamble with Egypt and Saudi Arabia finding American bases a political liability and no longer willing to pump out more oil faster to keep global prices down in the face of record oil company profits.

The Bush White House threw the dice in spite of top military advice that it was a bad gamble. These guys who had never gone to war overrode the best advice of those who wage war…

As individuals, when we refuse to accept any plan or information which does not support our own theories.. we set ourself up for catastrophe…

When the administration does so (as they did as recently as this last year with the EPA) the stakes just amplify and what would be a catastrophe for an individual is a disaster for a nation.

Yes, i blame the Bush White House for that.

I also blame my Senators and Congresspeople for governing by popularity polls and not making the kinds of tough decisions we pay them to make…

And i blame the press who were so busy playing cheerleader to the Administration that they forgot what a free press is supposed to do.. report objectively.

Oh.. and i also blame all of those people who wanted to get even and didn’t care who they got even with…

This war has been one of the most obvious examples of vigilante justice gone wrong that i have ever had the dubious privilege to witness in my lifetime.. and i honestly thought i had already seen the worst.. having lived through the demonstrations and riots of the 60s and 70s.

I just don’t think there is any way to sugarcoat this.

And i don’t think we should. Because if we do, we lose sight of the lessons that we need to learn here.

Ask yourself what you want form your nation.. world leadership or world domination.

World leadership is a path towards continued prosperity and peace.

World domination is a path towards individual economic collapse and terrorism on American soil.\

We are well on our way down the path to the second.. and i would like to remind you how well that worked out for the romans, the dutch, the spanish, the french and the english.

we should never forget that our nation was a result of rebellion to the policy we are now pursuing.

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[RS]

Very well said JoB!!!

And nice bringing some really old history into it! Reminded me of Eddie Izzard talking about Americans putting their hands over their hearts during the national anthem: “You and the Roman empire are the only people who’ve ever done that, so be very careful!” :)

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[Kayleigh]

Well said, JoB.

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[Zenguy]

Job, I could not agree more. I was one of those people that never got sucked into the media misinformation and could not believe what was happening. I took for granted back then that my representatives were pretty in line with my way of thinking, not any more. I keep up on the initiatives that are coming for a vote and let them know my position all the time (FISA was the last one). Democracy requires participation.

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[JoB]

Thanks…

i am glad to find that i was not as rash in my post as i thought i might have been…

zenguy..

i too have a steady stream of emails and calls to my elected representatives… reminding them that it takes more than lobbyists to get them elected.. it takes voters…

and not all voters can be bought and sold with a little advertising.

sometimes they have to actually do what we elected them to do.

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[Anonymous]

I’m out of my league when it comes to politics…. but if you want to find that there was evidence to support going to war, you will. If you want to find evidence that we shouldn’t have, you’ll find it.

My guy tells me to stop pointing out my lack of knowledge when it comes to these types of discussions, but I feel that I have to. If anything, so that I will not be looked too harshly on by others.

I am learning a lot this election and I have all the forum members here to thank for that!

I am still Republican.

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[Ken]

Which type?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELfiVTTb5Jw

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[Anonymous]

Gosh, Ken…. Do I have to pick JUST one???

That was funny (and I was only watching…. i have no sound).

And I would expect nothing less on this forum, but to find material portraying Republicans as complete idiots. So, well done!!

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[JanS]

Ken…that was great…I’m sure there will eventually be equal time for the rest of us :)

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[Author]

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