Jim Hoft has a good writeup on the report that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair are preparing to announce upcoming “drastic” troop withdrawals from Iraq. Via The Australian:
US and British officials hope Britain’s 8000 troops in Iraq can be cut to 5000 by the end of the year and the US’s 133,000 troops to about 100,000. Iraqi security forces could be in charge of much of the country by the year’s end.
Buoyed by the formation of Iraq’s new unity Government at the weekend, senior officials travelling with Mr Blair said all foreign troops should be out of the country within four years.
Mr Blair is to hold further discussions on withdrawal at a White House summit with Mr Bush later this week.
In response to that report, Jim Hoft says, “Boy, it’s going to be interesting to see the reaction to this news! …I guess that means, we won, huh?”
I will likely catch some flack for this, but my response to Jim would be that not only have we won, but we won some time ago. In fact, I would argue that we won it back when President Bush strapped on that flight suit and landed on the aircraft carrier in front of the “Mission Accomplished” sign. There were many additional battles yet to be fought, and very sadly there were many more lives to be lost, but from that point on, instead of us fighting to win the war, we started fighting to keep from losing it. That is a very important point to make. Regrettably, many of those battles were ones fought here in the arena of public opinion.
Over the past three years, some Democrats have seemed determined to do whatever it took to see us lose in Iraq, whether it be by demoralizing the troops in harm’s way or calling for us to cut and run. Their efforts stand in stark contrast to those of the President and the military who have insisted all along that we were winning and that if we would stay the course until the country was stable enough, and the Iraqis ready to take back control, that victory would be ours. Don’t forget, there were some that declared we were losing in the earliest days in Afghanistan and in the sandstorms on the road to Baghdad. Some of those people will never, under any circumstances, admit that we have won. That is something that should not be lost on voters.
Update: Just to clarify my position, to say that we won long ago does not mean to say that we couldn’t still lose that win under certain circumstances. For example, if we were to cut and run (withdraw all troops immediately) the progress we have made in Iraq could be undone and the effort could result in what would constitute a loss. The following analogy might not be the best, but it is what immediately comes to mind. Let’s say Teams A and B are playing basketball. With two minutes to go in the game, Team A leads Team B by 40 points. Team A has effectively won the game. There could still be points scored by Team B, and Team A could still even suffer some injuries, but barring anything exceptional happening, the game has been won. But what if, with two minutes to go, Team A decided to send all their players home. Team A would lose by forfeiting the game. That is what I fear could happen in Iraq if Democrats had their way.
Lorie,
I’m with Wretchard from ‘The Belmont Club’. He called the conflict in November 2005 in the following post:
The End of the Beginning…
We are now at a point that I do not think al-Qaeda can win – they have decisively lost. But, that does not mean other elements of the Islamofascist Hydraheaded monster cannot take its place. Note the recent turn toward Hamas and Hezbollah by the evil dictator – BusHitler!!!
I also don’t think the media has won their war. They have taken multiple black eyes over the past few years. They are wrong on a consistant basis. And, now we will soon get a view of those folks the media feel are ‘unimpeachable sources’ – like bitter, embarrassed, often wrong employees shuttled off to nowhereland waiting to be processed out. Yup, that person in unimpeachable.
I think Wretchard’s conclusion summarizes things best…
Sorry, but I’m still not tracking you binnster.
We didn’t stop Saddam from committing acts of mass murder when he was doing them. He was not alone. We didn’t do anything about Pol Pot, Ida Amin, etc. etc. Of course it wasn’t just us. It was every other country on planet Earth. We all turned a blind eye to “not our problem”.
You seem to imply that there is some sort of statute of limitations for atrocities. To paraphrase “Well, he hasn’t INVADED anyone in ten years, and when was the last time he used poison gas? 1988? Well I’m sure he learned his lesson by now. No sense stirring things up.” That about sum it up for you? Saddam had learned his lesson and was ready to move on into a happy future if only we’d have let him?
Saddam was still in power. He killed all these people, invaded those countries, and would have kept killing people, and attacking other countries as long as he could get away with it. He would not have stopped until we stopped him, or some other Baathest thug managed to put a bullet in his head. I don’t see how anyone rational can come to a different conclusion.
We should have taken him out in 1991. We should have sanctioned him before that, and worked to destroy his regime. We should have been more moral. But instead we listened to the realpolitik and what did it get us? The massacre of the mash Arabs, oil for food scandal, and endless other mischief.
Are we worse off? Really? The Middle East has for centuries enjoyed the wonderful stability of brutal crushing dictatorships. That was good for us and the rest of the world, nice and predictable, but was it right? How in the world can you argue that position? That very stability was purchased by supporting creeps like Saddam, and the Shah, and the Sheiks. Do you think we should ahve kept doing what we were doing? What should our policy have been?
Sorry, it just doesn’t work. Either you care about people, or you don’t. Either you are moral or you are not. You cannot argue that it was a mistake to take Saddam out, and a mistake to allow him to commit atrocities. You can’t pretend to care about the 2,500 American soldiers who have died, and ignore the 300,000 killed by Saddam.
Big D
You seem to imply that there is some sort of statute of limitations for atrocities. To paraphrase “Well, he hasn’t INVADED anyone in ten years, and when was the last time he used poison gas? 1988? Well I’m sure he learned his lesson by now. No sense stirring things up.” That about sum it up for you? Saddam had learned his lesson and was ready to move on into a happy future if only we’d have let him?
No, I’m suggesting that the claims that the Iraq invasion was conducted on humanitarian grounds is a complete fallacy. If we are to invade countries on humanitarian grounds, we invade when atrocities are actually happening and we are able to stop them. That would’ve put Iraq well down in the pecking order when it comes to liberating oppressed people. In short, if liberating the oppressed was a reason to invade a country, we would be bogged down somewhere else right now, not Iraq.
Saddam was still in power. He killed all these people, invaded those countries, and would have kept killing people, and attacking other countries as long as he could get away with it. He would not have stopped until we stopped him, or some other Baathest thug managed to put a bullet in his head. I don’t see how anyone rational can come to a different conclusion.
Saddam’s army was crushed easily in the Gulf war, and his remaining resources severely weakened by the ensuing sanctions. This idea that he still posed an invasion threat to anyone is also a fallacy. Sure, he was still killing people, but not at the rate that people have been dying since March 2003. Most of the people to die under his regime died years ago when he was our buddy, we have simply pushed the total up higher than it would’ve been.
We should have taken him out in 1991. We should have sanctioned him before that, and worked to destroy his regime. We should have been more moral. But instead we listened to the realpolitik and what did it get us? The massacre of the mash Arabs, oil for food scandal, and endless other mischief.
We could’ve taken him out in 1991, but Bush senior and Cheney have both gone on record with extremely compelling reasons as to why invading Iraq was a bad idea. What has listening to Bush junior and a reformed Cheney got us? An unstable country that appears to be moving towards a theocracy? More than 30,000 dead Iraqis (conservative estimate)? A new ally for Iraq (Al Sadr has pledged that his militias will fight to defend Iran if it is attacked by the US)? Missing billions of Iraqi recontruction money that should’ve gone to the Iraqi people but was lost due to coalition mismanagement?
Are we worse off? Really? The Middle East has for centuries enjoyed the wonderful stability of brutal crushing dictatorships. That was good for us and the rest of the world, nice and predictable, but was it right? How in the world can you argue that position? That very stability was purchased by supporting creeps like Saddam, and the Shah, and the Sheiks. Do you think we should ahve kept doing what we were doing? What should our policy have been?
We still support dictators who boil their own people alive, like Islam Karimov. We have kept doing what we were doing, we’re just not talking about it. Our policy should’ve been to keep containing Saddam while working towards invoking a popular uprising against him from his own people. What we saw after Saddam fell was a power vaccuum, with no viable opposition groups to take his place. Now they have a government that controls little outside the green-zone, and is greeted with skepticism by its Arab neighbours who are uncomfortable with the prospect of Iran’s growing influence in the region as the Shi’ites increase in power. If Iraq does eventually tumble into civil war, which is still a distinct possibility, those neighbours will get dragged in; which is obviously not good for anyone, no matter if you look at it from a humanitarian or economic perspective.
Sorry, it just doesn’t work. Either you care about people, or you don’t. Either you are moral or you are not. You cannot argue that it was a mistake to take Saddam out, and a mistake to allow him to commit atrocities. You can’t pretend to care about the 2,500 American soldiers who have died, and ignore the 300,000 killed by Saddam.
Saddam killed 300,000 people, their blood is on his hands. Our invasion has caused or led to the death of untold thousands (30,000 according to Bush, though others put it closer to 100,000), their blood is on our hands. Though it saddens me to see our troops die in a war I don’t believe in, what saddens me more is the deaths we are directly responsible for causing now, through a mixture of the inevitable casualties of war and the deaths attributable to our own incompetance at creating and maintaining a secure environment (we planned a great invasion, but forgot to plan for subsequent peace and security).
/apologies for length and girth
It’s sad …
But every single one of the arguments binnster, groucho (especially) and astigafa (is this some play on the Arabic for “forgive me?”) have been based on either outright lies (all of groucho’s posts), deliberate misrepresentations, selective amnesia or would be entirely unable to stand on their own without the benefit of hindsight.
Unfortunately, as Samuel Clemens remarked, falsehood is already halfway around the world before the truth has its shoes on. Lies require no basis in fact and so people like groucho, et al. can throw up their fables as fast as their fingertips allow … while the rest of us have to go googling, searching through Lexis/Nexis archives, etc because we have to back up our assertions.
But it matters not. We cannot let people like binnster, groucho, Lee, etc. to rewrite history. According to their side’s chief documentarian, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a joyous place where children flew kites all day.
binnster’s last post implicitly argues that Saddam Hussein, Chemical Ali, Qusay and Uday, etc. inexplicably stopped committing mass democide sometime after 1991. Apparently, he wasn’t killing people at a rate to cause any alarm anymore after the First Gulf War.
binnster is adopting the morally vacuous yet deliciously self-righteous position so popular with half-educated college students that since the United States helped (minimally) Saddam in his war against Iran (when Iran was considered the greater of two evils) in the 1980s, the United States has no moral standing to topple him nearly two decades later.
The fact of the matter is that groucho, Lee, mak44, astigafa, binnster, and the vast majority of the Left are really running away from having to specify exactly what it is that would ever justify the deployment of American troops. So far, it boils down to this …
(1) A Republican is not in the White House.
(2) America must pass a “global test” i.e. get UN approval – although if the President is a Republican, this would not be enough.
(3) Zero casualties or damage to infrastructure on either side.
(4) It must be over in exactly one month or less.
(5) Absolutely positively no hitches whatsoever. Everything must go perfectly at first try.
(6) Casualties must precisely mirror the American population in terms of race, gender, sexual preference, religion, etc.
(7) … some other impossible stricture …
Either way, who honestly believes that despite binnster’s supposed outrage about Darfur, should there be a 100 casualties, he would not be among the first people to declare a “quagmire” and start clamoring for a withdrawal of troops?
When it comes to Iraq, what the Left’s position is that even after 9/11, without the benefit of hindsight on the state of Saddam’s WMD programs/arsenal, and with every single credible intelligence agency and government around the world certain that Saddam Hussein still retained a significant amount of chemical and biological weapons, despite the incontrovertible knowledge that the Saddam Hussein regime and Al Qaeda (let’s not mention the many other terrorist groups Saddam gave support to) had reached out to each other multiple times, the President should have done absolutely nothing about Saddam Hussein except make some loud sabre-rattling noises.
I’ll repeat myself;
I believe that after 9/11, if I were President, any history of any form of friendly contact between Al Qaeda and a monstrous democidal regime like that of Saddam Hussein would have terrified me. Especially if I believed (as Clinton did), that there were unaccounted for WMDs still left in Iraq.
Anything other than an immediate meek, total and utter submission to a rigorous inspections process would not have sufficed. I doubt even mak44, Lee, binnster and groucho can make the case that Saddam fully complied with 1441 and left even a milquetoast like Hans Blix without serious complaints about his lack of compliance.
But then I’m a Republican. We tend not to take chances with America’s national security. Even if it would piss off the UN.
“But then I’m a Republican…” You should have said that at the very start of your post, and saved me the trouble of having to read it.
WTF? Let’s go over this again: Sadaam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, he is a secularist, they are religious fanatics. Period! Please stop trying to make a connection. Frat boy and his minions were already succesful in duping us in a most legerdemain manner. So you won already, you can stop with the repub talking points now.
Martin A. Knight,
binnster’s last post implicitly argues that Saddam Hussein, Chemical Ali, Qusay and Uday, etc. inexplicably stopped committing mass democide sometime after 1991. Apparently, he wasn’t killing people at a rate to cause any alarm anymore after the First Gulf War.
Whoa, that’s not exactly true there chief, see, here’s what I actually said: “Sure, he was still killing people, but not at the rate that people have been dying since March 2003.”.
binnster is adopting the morally vacuous yet deliciously self-righteous position so popular with half-educated college students that since the United States helped (minimally) Saddam in his war against Iran (when Iran was considered the greater of two evils) in the 1980s, the United States has no moral standing to topple him nearly two decades later.
Er, not exactly. I’m saying that we did not invade Saddam’s country because of the mass killings; if that was the reason then we would’ve gone in when the bulk of the acts were being commited, which we didn’t. If that were the reason, we would be invading other countries right now, which we are not.
This claiming the moral high ground over the decision to remove Saddam is bollocks, because that’s not why the decision was made, and anyone with eyes in their head can see that. Besides, in order to claim the moral high ground over the decision to invade Iraq, you have to ignore the corpses of untold thousands of Iraqis who have paid for our decision to invade their country with their lives.
PS. My College days were over decades ago
The fact of the matter is that groucho, Lee, mak44, astigafa, binnster, and the vast majority of the Left are really running away from having to specify exactly what it is that would ever justify the deployment of American troops. So far, it boils down to this …
Er, again, no. For me, deployment of troops is justified if my country is about to be invaded. Deployment is justified if a nation has attacked my country. Deployment is justified if a nation declares war on my country. Deployment is not justified if someone produces a few flimsy graphs and grainy satellite images and announces we must strike pre-emptively to stop the iminent danger some third-world asspiece poses to my country.
Either way, who honestly believes that despite binnster’s supposed outrage about Darfur, should there be a 100 casualties, he would not be among the first people to declare a “quagmire” and start clamoring for a withdrawal of troops?
Ok, you’ve assumed rather a lot about me instead of just asking what my opinion is. You clearly think I’m some kind of liar, so I’m probably wasting my time here…
I would support sending troops into Darfur in a peace-keeping capacity. You seem to think that I would clamor for them to be called home again if 100 were killed, but you haven’t even seen me clamor for them to be removed from Iraq. In fact, I think we should probably increase the number in Iraq, if anything. Although I was, and am, totally against them going in in the first place, I think that pulling troops out as soon as is suggested in the article above would be a mistake. I don’t think the Iraqi forces are ready for us to leave, and I don’t think they will be ready within the next couple of years. I think our presence there is the only thing holding the country together at the moment.
When it comes to Iraq, what the Left’s position is that even after 9/11, without the benefit of hindsight on the state of Saddam’s WMD programs/arsenal, and with every single credible intelligence agency and government around the world certain that Saddam Hussein still retained a significant amount of chemical and biological weapons, despite the incontrovertible knowledge that the Saddam Hussein regime and Al Qaeda (let’s not mention the many other terrorist groups Saddam gave support to) had reached out to each other multiple times, the President should have done absolutely nothing about Saddam Hussein except make some loud sabre-rattling noises.
Frankly, I never believed for a second that Saddam posed any kind of threat to us or anyone else. I did believe that a war in Iraq would turn messy. I was in favor of invading Afghanistan, and was majorly dissappointed when it looked like Bush was shifting focus from capturing the leaders there in favor of his daddie’s old enemy who’d been pretty quiet for years. Guess what? I was right; Saddam wasn’t a real threat, and Osama and his pals are still free releasing videos almost 5 years after he hit us. I’m bitterly pissed about that.
I don’t really fit into this “leftist” pigeon-hole you’re trying to force me into, my opinions on many subjects are wide and varied, I just believe invading Iraq was a bad idea on many different levels.
binnster, the height of consistency.
First he states:
Er, again, no. For me, deployment of troops is justified if my country is about to be invaded. Deployment is justified if a nation has attacked my country. Deployment is justified if a nation declares war on my country.
Almost immediately after, he states:
I would support sending troops into Darfur in a peace-keeping capacity.
I guess someone else would have to do that messy peace-starting stuff.
Nice.
WTF? Let’s go over this again: Sadaam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, he is a secularist, they are religious fanatics. Period! Please stop trying to make a connection.
Don’t shriek at me … go tell that to the 9/11 Commission (Chapter 2 – Page 66 i.e. 83 on PDF);
There is also evidence that in 1997, bin Laden sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some cooperation. None are reported to have received a significant response. According to one report, Saddam Hussein’s efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of bin Laden.
In mid-1998, the situation reversed, with Iraq reportedly taking the initiative. In March 1998, after bin Laden’s public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with bin Laden. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy, [Ayman al] Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis.
[…]
Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Laden or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered bin Laden a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Laden declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicated some common themes in both sides’ hatred of the United States.
WTF? Let’s go over this again: Sadaam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, he is a secularist, they are religious fanatics. Period! Please stop trying to make a connection.
Don’t shriek at me … go shriek at Janet Reno and her Justice Department. This is from Item 4 on the background info on Al Qaeda from the 1998 Justice Department indictment of Osama Bin Laden presented to the United States Southern District Court of New York:
Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezballah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States. In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.
WTF? Let’s go over this again: Sadaam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, he is a secularist, they are religious fanatics. Period! Please stop trying to make a connection.
Don’t shriek at me … go shriek at CNN. This is a report they filed on 02/13/1999 (FYI: Bush was still Governor of Texas in 1999);
… Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers.
WTF? Let’s go over this again: Sadaam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, he is a secularist, they are religious fanatics. Period! Please stop trying to make a connection.
Don’t shriek at me … go shriek at the Guardian (UK). This is from the story they filed on 02/06/1999.
It must have been a bitterly cold and uncomfortable journey. In the last days of December, a group of Iraqi officials crossed the Hindu Kush border from Pakistan to Afghanistan on their way to keep an appointment deep in the remote eastern mountains.
At the head of the group was a man by the name of Farouk Hijazi, President Saddam Hussein’s new ambassador to Turkey and one of Iraq’s most senior intelligence officers. He had been sent on one of the most important assignments of his career – to recruit Osama bin Laden.
Thus the world’s most notorious pariah state, armed with its half-built hoard of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, tried to embrace the planet’s most prolific terrorist. It was the stuff of the West’s millennial nightmares, but United States intelligence officials are positive that the meeting took place, although they admit that they have no idea what happened.
This was not the first time that President Saddam had offered Mr Bin Laden a partnership. At least one approach is believed to have been made during the Saudi dissident’s sojourn in Sudan from 1990 to 1996.
In other words, I’m not a New York Times reporter; I don’t lack comprehension skills, I don’t think Fahrenheit 9/11 is an actual documentary, I know how to use an Internet search engine, and I wasn’t born in 2003.
Amazing how allergic to reality the so-called “reality-based” community actually is. Or are you going to tell me Karl Rove (powerful Sith Lord though he may be) went back in time and wrote these stories? FYI: Bush was still Governor of Texas on 02/1999 … so the Administration and Intelligence officials cited in these articles were serving the _________ Administration … (fill it in yourself.)
Is this really your A-game, field-negro? Being black myself, I really would hate to think my brothers and sisters are being this ill-served by the school system.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.
W. Churchill
I just want to say I’ve enjoyed this discussion greatly. It has been maintained with a minimum of name calling and some thoughtful posts on both sides.
Still and all, the quote above holds true. We allow dictators to continue to exist in the world hoping and expecting that they eat us last. Given the size and power of the U.S., we are probably right. We are the whale swiming though the sharks.
No country really “threatens” us anymore. None are likely to any time soon. By this standard we should never deploy troops anywhere in the world. Liberty for me, but not for thee. Ho-hum.
The argument was made that we stopped Dictator X, but we didn’t do anything about Dictator Y, or atrocity Z, so we must be morally bankrupt. You know, last week I gave to the children’s cancer fund, but I didn’t give to the homeless shelter. Does this make me a hypocrite? Does it mean I don’t care about the homeless? What a lame argument.
Bush and company took on Saddam because they (and the rest of the world including the Democrats) thought he was a threat to regional and potentially world security. Really that is not up for debate. WMD or no WMD Saddam was a bad actor and deserved to be taken out. The only questions was how and by whom. We tried to avoid doing it ourselves from 1990 to 2003 (13 long years) but no luck. His own people couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do it, and no outside force was up to the task. It was the U.S. led invasion or nothing. So the question remains – Saddam in power with no sanctions, regional ambitions and a thirst for WMD, or the U.S. invasion and a chance at democracy? These were the only two realistic choices. Pick one and defend it. You can defend not doing anything, but not from the moral high ground. It just doesn’t pencil out.
Is Iraq a failure? How so? If you had told me three years ago that we could put a democratic government in Iraq within three years at the cost of 2,500 troops I would have thought you were insane. Wars are very nasty affairs, but from the perspective of history the Iraq war is a stunning success.
To minimize Iraqi civilian casualties, the easiest and most expedient thing for the U.S. to have done after ousting Saddam would have been to put a new Iraqi stringman in charge. We would have been out in six months with 500 casualties. Bush would be a hero. Instead we opted for the messy and inherently unstable concept of building a democracy. Never been done before, at least in that region. Noble ambitions, and surprisingly we seem to be succeeding even there. There is a democracy in Iraq. We may not like ever aspect of it, but there it sits on the Euphrates. Amazing.
40,000 Iraqis dead? Probably true. Of course this number is a sum of civilian deaths caused by military action, terrorist activity and by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order. Want to guess which number is the smallest? Most opponents of the war would rather you didn’t.
Of course the U.S. casualty number includes accidental deaths and non-combat deaths like traffic accidents and heart attacks. Actual combat death are under 2,000. But let’s not clog up discussions with things like easily verifiable facts.
In summary, saying we won in Iraq is not much of stretch. Saddam is gone, a (weak) democratic government remains. Lots of Al Qaeda nut jobs are wondering where the virgins are. It cost a fortune, it cost some lives, but we accomplished our reasonable goals. Now it is entirely up to the Iraqis to make it worth it.
Truth, Lies and everything in between..
Hey Martin, playing “six degrees of Osama Bin Laden” doesn’t count. If I spent the time cutting and pasting cherry-picked blurbs to support my point, you’s just dismiss them as lies. If Saddam and OBL had a cup of coffee together years ago it doesn’t make them co-conspirators.
We were sold a bill of goods in Iraq, a premeditated, manufactured mistake of a war, more bad than good will come from it in the long run, and no, we haven’t WON anything. That’s my opinion. I don’t lack comprehension skills either, and I don’t presume to think for others or call them liars because I might disagree with them. I think you will be on the wrong side of history on this one, what can I say? Name-calling, straw man arguments and glib generalizations are the refuge of someone with an untenable position.
Peace
Martin -not sure what you being black has to do with this discussion, but anyway, I am going to try this again. You are obviously well schooled in rethuglican talking points, but I really wish you, and others of your ilk, would take a breath and try to comprehend what other people are saying before you post.
I am going to concede one thing to you, in my post I should have been more specific and said 911, and not Al Qaeda-not that it makes any difference, but to play along with your silly semantic game I will do that. Now, let’s review your so called smoking guns: “they admit they have no idea what happened” or, “…Iraqi officials offered Bin Laden safe haven in Iraq, but Bin Laden declined..” I love this one “…similer meetings between Iraq officials and Bin Laden MAY have occured..” Oh, and this from 1997 “… bin laden sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime….none are reported to have revealed a significant response..” OK Martin, your talking points are not convincing. These are not exactly the type definitive reports that we are looking for when we are talking about 2,500 American lives, and billions (soon to reach a trillion) of dollars worth of our money.
And BTW Martin, I am not your brother, my handle says field, not house negro. And this is not hardly my A-game, I save my A-game for things that really matter; like helping my people, and contributing to my community. Not debating with an obeisant republican majordomo such as you.
binnster, the height of consistency.
First he states:
Er, again, no. For me, deployment of troops is justified if my country is about to be invaded. Deployment is justified if a nation has attacked my country. Deployment is justified if a nation declares war on my country.
Almost immediately after, he states:
I would support sending troops into Darfur in a peace-keeping capacity.
There is nothing inconsistent about what I said. In the first paragraph I was clearly describing under what circumstances I would consider deployment of troops justified as an act of war. Perhaps I missed off “I would also support deployment of troops if their mission is in a peace-keeping or “policing” capacity only”, but that was fairly implicit in my last statement. That means deployment in order to protect civilians without any declaration of war being made.
Oh field-negro … I could have guessed you’d resort to the idiotic and monstrously stupid “Oreo”/”Coconut” foolishness. That’s so played out I wonder if you’ve been living on this planet for the past twenty years.
You see, unlike you I do not believe I was born with a tattoo on my forehead, stomach or rear-end saying “Property of the DNC”. Neither was there one saying “Property of the NAACP”, “Property of Jesse Jackson” or “Property of Bill Clinton”. So I do not consider it an act of treason when my opinions differ from those of Nancy Pelosi.
So, my dear young self-righteous pissant, you’re no more nor less blacker than I am. The only difference between you and me is that you have proven conclusively that you happen to simultaneously belong to the race of idiots (just like lily-(all)white Howard Dean).
I am going to concede one thing to you, in my post I should have been more specific and said 911, and not Al Qaeda
So you wanted to answer with non-sequitur. And not an original one at that.
RIGHT: Saddam has sheltered, sponsored, and provided training to terrorists. Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda have also had extensive friendly contacts and sent delegations to each other requesting closer ties.
LEFT: Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11!
Dodging the question (either by non-sequitur or constructing a stupid strawman) doesn’t persuade, field-negro. See what allowing the Left to trap you in a failing school system does to you? And what’s worse, you fall down to your knees everyday thanking them for it.
OK Martin, your talking points are not convincing.
Seeing that you cherry-picked phrases (not even full sentences – perhaps that’s the limit of your ability to comprehend) and I was posting full paragraphs and actually linking to the reports, I’m not surprised you were not convinced. Besides, The thought never crossed my mind that I could convince you.
So let’s look at just the 9/11 report. Note the bolded words and try to put them together to piece together the pertinent information to somebody who actually is concerned with American national security.
There is also evidence that in 1997, bin Laden sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some cooperation. None are reported to have received a significant response. According to one report, Saddam Hussein’s efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of bin Laden.
In mid-1998, the situation reversed, with Iraq reportedly taking the initiative. In March 1998, after bin Laden’s public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence …
In other words, both reached out to each other – meaning that your “Saddam was secular – Bin Laden was a theocrat … they could never ever work together!” article of faith just got shot to tiny little pieces. The above just dealt with 1997 and mid-1998. The Guardian article dealt with late December 1998 to early 1999 where American Intelligence officials confirmed that Saddam and Al Qaeda sent delegations to meet with each other.
So here you are, confidently claiming that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden could never ever work with each other … while all the evidence shows that Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden themselves never shared that opinion in the first place.
I see you also completely ignored the Clinton Administration’s Bin Laden indictment. Telling. The cognitive dissonance got too much for you?
Either way, if you were capable of comprehending beyond mere phrases that, only when taken in absolute isolation support your already formulated conclusions, you would have noticed that Osama offered to ally himself with Saddam Hussein, and after that, Saddam offered an alliance (and sanctuary). In other words, conclusive evidence that both would have no problem working together should it be at an amenable time for both of them.
Sadaam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, he is a secularist, they are religious fanatics. Period!
Don’t shriek at me … go shriek at Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden – maybe you can convince them that they’re being able to countenance working together violates the law of Left-wing physics.
These are not exactly the type definitive reports that we are looking for …
:-]
I love it when Lefties display their total and complete ignorance of national security and intelligence matters. Demanding a 100% certainty? No wonder Jessie “the War Criminal Ranger” MacBeth fooled you all.
Pay attention, idiot;
Especially after 9/11, any history of any form of “friendly contact” (the 9/11 Commission’s words – not mine) between Al Qaeda and a monstrous democidal regime like that of Saddam Hussein should concern anybody who takes American national security seriously. Especially if one believed (as Clinton did as of 03/2003), that there were unaccounted for WMDs still left in Iraq.
But then you’re a Democrat mind-slave (who openly believes that one is not “truly” black unless he does and thinks EXACTLY as Reid/Pelosi/Dean/Jackson stipulate). The type of fool who thinks unless one hates Condoleeza Rice and loves Howard Dean, one hates black people. I understand y’all need to wait for permission after passing a “global test”.
I save my A-game for things that really matter; like helping my people, and contributing to my community.
Save the sanctimonious BS for someone who believes your s**t. Considering that you’re the type of fool who thinks Bill Cosby is a sellout for openly saying what we all know is true so we can face the problem, even though his little finger has done ten times more for the black community than you would do in your entire life, I would bet you do more harm than good.
Do you think this is even my B-game?
Shorter translation of groucho’s post:
I cannot refute or debunk any part of Martin’s argument, so I’ll retreat behind non-sequiturs, strawmen and the pretense that “I could do it if I only had the time.“
groucho …
Don’t try to convince me … there are all sorts of people reading this blog who are more open to being swayed your way or mine than either of us.
Take me on.
Maybe you can convince them.
“Martin -not sure what you being black has to do with this discussion, but anyway..”
heh. This from the guy who calls himself ‘field-negro’ in every discussion. And calls others desparaging names concerning their ‘blackness’.
binnster …
This claiming the moral high ground over the decision to remove Saddam is bollocks, because that’s not why the decision was made, and anyone with eyes in their head can see that.
Really? From the Joint Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq [10/02/2002]:
Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;
…
Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;
…
Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it “supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1),” that Iraq’s repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and “constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,” and that Congress, “supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688”;
…
Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;
Not only do I have eyes in my head, I can actually read.
Anyway, when it comes down to it, your main argument sounds reasonable. It’s all about when you consider it appropriate to use military force. There is a difference of opinion here between Right and Left.
It’s when you say stuff like this that hackles rise;
Frankly, I never believed for a second that Saddam posed any kind of threat to us or anyone else.
Who the heck do you believes you here? Especially when we have Democrat members of the Congressional Intelligence Committees, the former Democrat President of the United States and dozens of his Administration officials (including those with the highest Intelligence clearances) stating the exact opposite prior to 03/2003 until they had access to hindsight?
One of the major arguments against the war by those (few) Democrats that voted against it was that Saddam would use his WMD against American troops!
From the Joint Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq [10/02/2002]:
Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;
How come you had better information than the White House, Congress, the CIA, MI6, DGSE, etc? And if your sources were that good, why didn’t you contact your Congressman to set up a meeting with Jane Harman, Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller or Tom Daschle?
Or are you just taking advantage of hindsight?
Honesty. It’s always the best policy.
Deployment is not justified if someone produces a few flimsy graphs and grainy satellite images …
I wonder what Adlai Stevenson would think of this?
… and announces we must strike pre-emptively to stop the iminent danger …
This is what Bush actually said: “Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?”
Just because “imminent” and “threat” are in the same sentence does not mean that I’m a asserting that the subject of my sentence is an “imminent threat.”
Are you honestly telling me that you cannot comprehend that Bush is saying that American should not wait until the threat is imminent? Basic English comprehension should tell you that Bush is implicitly acknowledging that the threat is not yet imminent and that America should not wait until it is.
C’mon binnster. I can understand if you were Lee, mak44, groucho or field-negro. But I think you’re a great deal smarter than them.
… some third-world asspiece poses to my country.
Yet you supported the invasion of Afghanistan, the quintessential failed state, far more of a “third world mouthpiece” than Iraq ever was.
I was in favor of invading Afghanistan, and was majorly dissappointed when it looked like Bush was shifting focus from capturing the leaders there in favor of his daddie’s old enemy who’d been pretty quiet for years.
Contrary to popular Left-wing belief, the US military can walk and chew gum at the same time. Do you think the thousands of troops in Afghanistan are “distracted” by Iraq? That they’re somehow less focussed on eliminating the Taliban because there are other troops in Iraq? I am sure you are aware that the Army and Marines, not to mention the Air Force and Navy still have a great deal of manpower.
Would adding in another 10,000 troops to Elkenberry’s command make you feel any better?
Hey Martin, are you always this ignorant and uninformed, or is it just when you revert yo your republican side? First, you know nothing about me or my education, so before you embarrass yourself any further you might want to quit before I decide to call you out for the fraud that you are. Again, your talking points were way off base, and totally cherry picked to suit your argument.
And speaking of non sequitors -you seem to like that word- what the h**l does Cosby have to do with this discussion or my views on the war? Shhhez! My man, you have some serious issues you have to work through, and I suspect that they have something to do with how much you hate yourself. But anyway, since you metioned the Cos, let me go there with you. I actually agreed with 99% of the stuff he said, and no, I have not done as much as he has for my people, (not quite as much money as he has to give) but I have done quite a bit, and I am willing to bet you all of your old Reagan campaign buttons, that I have done a lot more than you. You see Martin, sitting at your computer and going over rethuglican talking points, doesn’t count as contributing to your race. It counts as being a self hating wannabe helot, who thinks that by being whiter and more conservative than the next white guy in the room somehow gives you access.
Sorry Martin, you are a fraud, and the type of negro that would have been a paid slave catcher when slavery was legal. Do I think this is even your “B” game? No Martin, I bet you have a lot more game than this.
There is nothing inconsistent about what I said. In the first paragraph I was clearly describing under what circumstances I would consider deployment of troops justified as an act of war. Perhaps I missed off “I would also support deployment of troops if their mission is in a peace-keeping or “policing” capacity only”, but that was fairly implicit in my last statement. That means deployment in order to protect civilians without any declaration of war being made.
How Clintonian. It depends on what the meaning of the word “deploy” means.
So who, exactly, is going to impose the “peace” we are going to “keep”?
Shorter field-negro translation:
I got schooled … can’t counter or refute so I’ll just scream a few insults, say “Rethuglican” (how original) a few times and then run away.
PS: Empty threats don’t work with me. You are clearly lacking any ability to formulate, comprehend and support an argument. Whatever education you’ve had, it’s obviously been completely wasted.
IOW, Do your worst; “call me out …”
Actually Martin, I said rethuglican once in the above post.[not a few times] And I never threatened you or screamed in my post.[A SCREAM WOULD LOOK LIKE THIS] But you are a typical repub. [see I didn’t use that word] always twisting what others say to suit your point of view. [kind of like you are trying to do with the justification for war in Iraq] how sad.
Sorry Martin, I am not calling you out, sad as it is, you are who you are. Your problem is that you don’t like who you are, so when I tell you, it hurts.
The victim game you black repubs play is sort of pathetic and played. You have a right to your opinions and to be a repub- I actually wish there were more of you- but please don’t play yourselves up as if every time there is an ideological argument you are attacked and vilified because you are black. No, you are attacked because your argument is flawed, not because you are a black repub. I actually agree with repubs on a lot of issues, this however, does not happen to be one of them. Ok Martin? So please get over yourself, and go back to listening to your Tobey Keith cd’s.
Sorry Martin, I am not calling you out …
Thought so.
The victim game you black repubs play …
You forget; I’m a Conservative Republican.
Victimhood is something Leftists aspire to.
No, you are attacked because your argument is flawed …
If only you actually demonstrated that it was flawed. But you didn’t. You just repeated CodePink talking points and ran away from having to do any heavy lifting.
All in all field-negro … pathetic.
But have a nice day.