"Captain Compassion" <daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote in message
news:k62m12pbflh942fucter8fjus7sndb77ov@4ax.com...

On 17 Mar 2006 08:52:53 -0800,

Well, every time they spoon fed us a lie, they also implied and sometimes
outright lied (especially Cheney) that they had intelligence that they
couldn't tell us. So that is a fair excuse for those that believed them. I
just never believed them (but I couldn't know for a fact there was not
evidence they had they couldn't reveal) On the other hand, I judge
pre-emptive war as a very serious matter. It is unforgivable to me that
leaders in the highest places would play the "Trust me card" when it was a
blank. Those that trusted them should be even more displeased with them
than I am. They didn't fool me; I always suspected they were lying. I
wasn't betrayed; but those that believed them were.

Due to pressure from Russia, China and the EU there was pressure to
remove the UN sanctions. The removal of sanctions would give the
perception of an Iraqi and Saddam victory over the west. Iraq would
then become a rallying point for all the Islamic and Middle East
crazys. There is little doubt that with the lifting of the sanctions
Saddam would restart his WMD programs.

Yeah, Saddam wanted the sanctions lifted. Iraq needed them lifted. Even
before Bush was in office we took too strong a position on those sanctions.
We wouldn't even give them an "if" "then" conditional agreement to lift
those sanctions. We wouldn't even talk about them. That was a mistake!
Economic freedom in Iraq was so important we could have traded chip for chip
to insure both their development and massive safeguards that he didn't get
those weapons. After Desert Storm, he had to know he could never use them!
The thinkers of the Military Industrail Complex always fail to understand
the power of our might. I believe that is offtimes an intentional failure.
If we used our power to force peace.........they would soon be out of
business. They profit from the wars. Only the weapons makers on both sides
profit. The people of both sides would do much better with the peace that
walking softly but firmly with a big stick can bring. So we have WAR!
There are other ways to achieve better results. War is the least productive
of economic events. It destroys capital! It destroys the means of
production and results in massive unemployment after the wars are over.

I understand your position. It has been the theory since the end of World
War II. It goes back to the days of the Crusades! It is the lack of faith
in the whole idea of self-determination. You fear the results of
self-determination and you fear the results of new democracy. This lack of
faith keeps Europe constructing wedges among the Arabs, while they unify
Europe. It is the same lack of faith that causes the US to fear land reform
in South America. It is the weakness of fearful men that they do not
believe the same ideals that brought them freedom and free markets would
bring other men the same results.

So it is our wedges that cause them to hate us. No country on Earth has a
more rational right to hate America than Iran. It is inevitable that our
continued efforts to control them will result in there bringing war upon our
heads. Men will be free! There is a small chance that if we stopped
building the wedges and dealt honestly with them..........they would deal
honestly with us, but that will not happen. We will not deal honestly with
them, nor will they trust us.

The taking of Iraq gives the US a military presence right in the
middle of terrorist land. US military and air assets are mere minutes
away from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.

What good is a military presence when the pool of potential soldiers lose
respect for that military and plan their lives outside the military
experience? There are many mistakes being made and each one will cost us
dearly.

Captain Compassion wrote:

On 17 Mar 2006 08:52:53 -0800,

Captain Compassion wrote:

On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:11:57 -0600, "Randy Cox" <randd49@airmail.net>
wrote:

"Captain Compassion" <daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote in message
news:bplj121ns8d3e0kk4837vtbm53dg14tsjm@4ax.com...

Saddam Hussein maintained pretense of chemical arms to prevent Israeli
attack

You know anyone could have figured out the logic of this! I must have
pointed it out a hundred times or more before the invasion. There was time
for us to do the job right in Afghanistan with all our forces, and then plan
something for Iraq that was more intelligent than invading from the North
when Turkey told us NO!

Many times I used the analogy of a man walking through a bad neighborhood in
the early hours. An unarmed man will want desperately for all who he passes
to think he might just have a gun in his pocket.

We might have had a free, democratic, and well-functioning Afghanistan for
far less than we've spent in Iraq, if we hadn't rushed to seize the oil.

With a success there we could have had a base for doing something good in
Iraq. Instead we have civil war..........oil production below 50% of what
it was under Saddam and a legacy of torture and failed planning for America.

As much as it satisfies the blood lust of Americans from the lowest
order.........it does not fix us as the head of a higher order of
civilization............but a lower one.

What part of history do fools always miss? The part where it repeats
itself. Weak, cowardly regimes that torture to achieve results of
questionable to negligible value........are soon replaced.

You could have KNOWN this six years ago if you had just thought through the
logic as I presented it then. It wasn't about evidence........it was about
the obvious lack of genuine evidence........and the logic.

As I have said many times before, before Desert Storm, when Saddam had all
kinds of WMD save nukes.............we simply told him we would use Neutrons
to neutralize him if he tried to use any of it. Saddam was tough and
evil.....but he wasn't insane. He knew then the uselessness of having
weapons he could never use.

HE DIDN'T USE 'EM WHEN HE HAD THEM.............why would he bother trying to
keep what he would never have the courage or insanity to use? He didn't!
He didn't have them..........and it wasn't that hard to see why we needed
real evidence rather than LIES.......absolute, intentionally fabricated,
grasping at straws LIES before we rushed to wage war on TWO FRONTS. One
more time, what part of history do fools always miss? The part where it
repeats itself.

Teachers in America are being placed on suspension because they dare to
compare Bush to Hitler. How can be turn foolish children into wise adults
without teaching them the importance of history? How can a child learn the
folly of war on two fronts without a comparison between Hitler's (France and
Russia) and Bush's (Afghanistan and Iraq).

If you don't make that comparison......you must HATE AMERICA and her
children that need to be taught the lessons of history.

If you delude yourself into thinking Afghanistan is a won war rather than a
Drug Lord feudal state of terror.........then you wouldn't know what I was
talking about anyway. Go check out the torture pictures on Salon.com. Keep
telling yourself how those hoods and electrical wires were just staged for
photos. Yeah, look at the guy who has copper wire stitched through his
earlobe to insure contract. That stitching in the ear really must have made
them believe they were really going to be shocked, huh? Of course, it was
just a ruse for a photo.......Hollywood stitches actors all the time with
wire when they do those electrification segments........

Americans that defend torture like this are either the most dishonest or the
most gullible of people on earth. I suspect they are just dishonest like
their lying leader. The truth doesn't matter to them.

You can suspect the truth from the logic that is obvious all around. That
some tell lies is no excuse for perpetually buying untruth!

You have to think everything through from the beginning to the end to know
anything. If you don't know anything.........then you don't have any
business making policy. George W. Bush knows way to little to be making
decisions in America.........and people who knew less than
him...............put him in charge.

.......

But you and a handful of the specially enlightened knew all along.
Right?

Captain: Not trying to pull an "I told you so" here, but yes, a lot of
us were suggesting exactly this during the lead up to the war. While I
supported the invasion (in hindsight, a mistake) based on the evidence
reported at the time, I definitely cautioned my over-eager friends that
this could well turn out to be yet-another one of Hussein's bluffs.

This was based on the fact that our intel appeared to be coming from
within his own ranks. Hussein had little to gain by developing new
WMDs but plenty to gain by pretending he had them. Tyrants rely on the
pretense of overwhelming and radical capabilities. It is their
unpredictability that tends to keep them in power, as those within
their own ranks are kept in a constant state of fear, while comforted
by the fact that he can in fact devistate their enemies. The necessity
to perpetuate this myth was a very likely reason why his own officers
were reporting (in many cases in full honesty) their belief Hussein had
WMDs.

Hitler bluffed his own Generals on the progress of his Nuke program,
and Hussein himself promised the "Mother of all battles" in 1991.
There was definitely an historic precidence to believe he might be
bluffing his own ranks, which is, it would appear, what actually did
happen.

...

It seems that the POTUS and the majority of congress saw things
otherwise.

I saw it the same way as them at the time (despite my reservations), as
I would rather have erred on the side of caution (or, overkill
depending on perspective) regarding our national defense.

It was always the Captain's opinion that there were better, but less
obvious, reasons for an attack on Iraq post 9/11.

I agree. My own personal reason was I wanted to see us finish the job
we started in 1991. I remember being stationed in a fox hole in Dihuk,
Iraq in the spring, during the time Saddam was making boastful speeches
in nearby Mosul (those famous clips of him firing a shotgun over the
crowd are from that event). I would so have loved to have been given
the opportunity to spoil his party then. I was under the command of a
then young Colonel names John Abizaid, who, I have little doubt felt
the same way.

Due to pressure from Russia, China and the EU there was pressure to
remove the UN sanctions. The removal of sanctions would give the
perception of an Iraqi and Saddam victory over the west. Iraq would
then become a rallying point for all the Islamic and Middle East
crazys. There is little doubt that with the lifting of the sanctions
Saddam would restart his WMD programs.

These are good points to, and bring up a basic flaw in the style of
this current administration. Had they trusted the American public
enough to level with us on these sound arguments, it may have made for
a harder political battle up front, but it would have been a lot better
for America in the long run. The shroud of secrecy they maintain over
their own decision making comes accross as Nixonian and breeds
distrust.

The taking of Iraq gives the US a military presence right in the
middle of terrorist land. US military and air assets are mere minutes
away from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.

This is a major benefit, but I would argue we pretty much had a staging
ground in Northern Iraq, where we already had a military presence. We
could have used the tension to expand that presence and deploy rapid
deployment units with air and mechanized artillary support. In
hindsite (hey, I'm being honest here), we would have been better served
by not committing such a massive portion of our forces into the
confines of a single specific geographical area. As much as I wanted
Saddam's head on a stick, I would have still prefered Osama's first.