"tussock" <scrub@clear.net.nz> wrote in message
news:4305c81a@clear.net.nz...

Michael Scott Brown wrote:

I'm quite sure that the assessments that he had no toys to share were
the correct ones. 'Tis a shame it took a war to find that out.
Moral of the story: don't pretend you've got 'em when there's a
president looking for excuses.

Saddam produced thousands of pages of documentation showing how
they'd all been destroyed, while plainly stating he was not in violation
of the appropriate resolutions. He even dismantled those rockets that
could breach the range limit if you took the warhead out.
Bush co's "excuses" where nothing but hot air.

Your ignorance is showing again. Hussein's regime had been caught
red-handed lying about such things previously (the first weapons inspection
regime would never have succeeded were it not for the help of a defector who
led the UN to where the real toys were), and his boys continued to engage in
huge amounts of duplicitous behaviour that made it appear he still had
things to hide.

Here's a hint: preventing inspectors from going into a facility for 24
hours while trucks empty the place is *not* a good way to demonstrate
cooperation. This all makes sense in retrospect, as Hussein believed that
maintaining the appearance of those capabilities was important to preserving
the security of his state.

The Bushies had no *hard* evidence of guilt, but there was plenty of
smoke to suggest a fire; many not-particularly-objective people thought the
evidence they had supported a hypothesis of continuing WMD program (and it's
worth pointing out that you haven't seen 1% of it. The whole business with
classification...).

Hell, I had argued myself at the time that given Hussein's security
situation and ambitions, it would be absurd *not* to try and continue with
WMD research on the down low.

I pause here to observe that this question impugns your worth in this
category of discussion completely and utterly. You, and those like you,
yammer on and on about what *is*, as of this minute, today, and judge the
effort a failure because of conditions *now*. Yet the transformation of
Iraq is a *process* that is STILL HAPPENING.

I asked why you consider it a success, and accompanied that with
jibes indicating some obvious failures that have been claimed to be a
success by certain people. You've come back with "it not a success yet,
but it might be one day."

That's the correct answer, dipshit, if you change "might" to "will". At
the risk of repeating myself, Iraq as a failed state becomes a replacement
for Afghanistan as a haven for Al Queda. Such an outcome is unacceptable -
and therefore the US will not pull its fingers out of the pie until that
*doesn't* happen.

I agree that it will get better; after all, Vietnam got better
after the US left too.

Where "better" is defined as decades of oppression by communists until
communism gave way to communism in-name-only...

That doesn't mean the US succeeded at anything then,

<sound of brakes screeching>
Your argument just spiraled into idiocy and irrelevance with a false
analogy. Good show! Here's a hint, *****: did the US conquer Vietnam and
build a new regime there? *NO*.

nor that they will succeed in "transforming Iraq" now, as much as
it will obviously become a better place to live at some point in the
future regardless of their efforts.

At which point, one can compare the state of the Iraqi people as they
would have been at that time under Hussein.
And like it or not, *fuckwit*, given enough time the "no Hussein"
outcome is inarguably superior. US invasion and regime change is a painful
transformation (but so was being under Hussein's rule - that boy used his
security apparatus against a *lot* of Iraqis).

My complaint is that war wasn't the only option for acheiving that,
and that the way it's being carried out is criminally negligent.

What option other than war would pry the Baathist regime off of the
necks of the Iraqi people?
Asking nicely? No. Economic sanctions? Tried that.

The only correct thing you've said so far is that the *way* the US went
about it was negligent.

I know you're not really saying that, but I'm really just having
fun at this point anyway. You're not speaking clearly enough to argue
against. Too much doublethink.

Translation: "I, tussock, lack the intellectual capacity to hold a
conversation that involves complex issues"

You don't even comprehend that your entire basis of complaint is
COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.

You're still not defining what the hell you mean by success. I can
see what the US occupation has achieved, you seem to think that's all
incidental, and it's really all about misguided humanitarianism.

You have already declared that you have no interest in discussing
the issue intelligently, so I'll not waste my time explaining the
administration's ambitions and the realistic set of outcomes.

Your claim that *I* think it is about "misguided humanitarianism"
is spectacularly idiotic, given that I have never made any claims to
that effect. This makes you an idiot. You, and our little kook
Joseph both have this remarkable ability to confuse the idea that
someone might *understand* neoconservative ambitions and thus be in a
position to correct your staggering amounts of ***** without
buying into their righteousness.

There are many legitimate critiques to be made of Iraq.
You aren't capable of making them.
And you certainly aren't capable of comprehending the goals of those
who set this in motion.

I can certainly see their acheivements; hundreads of billions of
dollars taken from people who would never have given it up for this, all
on the back of lies told to get a war started and the unnessiasry deaths
of perhaps a quarter of a million Iraqis, so far.

There you go again, buckwheat. Your critique is about "this" - the
*current* violent and insecure muddle. If "this" were ALL THERE WAS EVER
GOING TO BE, you're quite right - the wealth and blood invested would be a
waste and nobody would have authorized it.

But I've already informed you that your insistence an analyzing
the situation's strategic merits based on its *current state* is a
fundamentally flawed way of thinking, and yet YOU CONTINUE TO DO SO.

That's pretty fucking stupid, to continue with the error when you've
been told about it.

At some point in the future, the "achievment" will be hundreds of
billions of dollars spent and some thousands of lives lost in order to
create an Arab democracy in the ashes of a former dictatorship - as well as
the utter disgrace of the Bush administration for being completely incapable
of trusting the wisdom of those who knew how to to go about it.

"But they meant well" sounds like so much apologist *****.

NOR IS THAT THE ARGUMENT FOR ACTION THERE.
The fact that US policy happens to (in principle) benefit the Iraqi
people is all well and good, but it is not the goal. We do not "mean well".
The neoconservative ambition is to destroy ALL THE DICTATORSHIPS IN THE
MIDDLE EAST. *That* is what advances US security, as nothing short of that
will be required to drain the swamp of motivation for terrorism.

Do not *ever* say in public that war is always bad, again, you
anti-Semitic jackass.