Originally Posted By mrichmondj Maybe I'm confused, but if you have multiple factions in the same country that are actively fighting one another, isn't that a civil war? I wouldn't say civil war is likely in Iraq -- it is already in progress. How it all ends up is still worthy of a new poll.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>a pro Saddam type<< <a href="http://www.giftapolis.com/hehawtshirt.html" target="_blank">http://www.giftapolis.com/heha wtshirt.html</a>
Originally Posted By gadzuux >> I think I will listen to the people in the military who are in Iraq than the liberal media. They say no civil war is likely. << From today's 'jon carroll' column - <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/03/10/DDGU9GJ5HJ1.DTL" target="_blank">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/03/10/DDGU9GJ5HJ1.DTL</a> Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, warned on Sunday that Iraq was teetering on the brink of civil war. Iyad Allawi, the former interim prime minister of Iraq, said almost the same thing a day before. Retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a U.S. commander in Bosnia-Herzegovina, says he thinks Iraq is already in a state of low-level civil war. And on and on -- almost everyone who's paying attention uses that phrase, "civil war." The increasing body counts, the ethnic (or religious) cleansing of neighborhoods, the bombings of mosques -- they all support the idea that civil war is near and that steps should be taken. Donald Rumsfeld doesn't believe it. He thinks it's all an exaggeration of the news media, whipping up hysteria in that way that it has. Asked about the civil war, Rumsfeld said the current government of Iraq (insofar as Iraq may be said to have a current government) has it all well in hand. "They (Iraqi leaders) have to be fully aware that if this does not work, they and all of the people who have supported them lose everything, if this turned into a civil war, and they can't want that. They want just the opposite and they've demonstrated the courage to show that they want just the opposite." Well, that's OK, then. The leaders really, really don't want it, and so it will not happen, because everyone pays attention to leaders. So it's not going on, it's just the news media getting hysterical, and if it were going on, the leaders would stop it. OK, as I said, these guys wake up in the morning and start lying. << So who you gonna believe beau?
Originally Posted By Beaumandy I believe Rummy and the leaders in our Military. Notice how you don't have any people claiming Iraq civil war who are actively invloved in the war on a day to day basis?
Originally Posted By gadzuux And why would you believe the US military? It's been shown repeatedly that they'll lie about yesterday's weather.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy << I do know this. We invaded a soverign country using false intelligence and without provocation. >> The intellignece might have been faulty, we still don't know. Blame your democrats for insisting Saddam had WMD's and he had to be removed. Also, he broke 17 UN resolutions and he fired at our planes. Since I put you in the Saddam fan club because you try and argue his country should still be his, you really should learn who this guy was and what would have happened if we would have let the pro saddam crowd talk us into letting him stay. <<the country is on the brink of civil war and the population of that nation wants us to leave.>> So says a liberal who always thinks the world is a bad place and we can't possibly win. If they want us to leace in Iraq all they have to do is ask. YOur negative attitude is why democrats can never have power. Attitude is everything, and such negative attitudes don't win anything.. except terrorist friends.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy << And why would you believe the US military? It's been shown repeatedly that they'll lie about yesterday's weather. >> Gadzuux, you might not believe this, but outside of Frisco, people like the military and appreciate what they do and who they are.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>The intellignece might have been faulty, we still don't know.<< MIGHT? LOL! You're the last guy beating that drum, and the rest of the band has marched around the corner long ago. "It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," Bush said during his fourth and final speech before Thursday's vote for Iraq's parliament. "As president I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. And I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities. And we're doing just that." <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.iraq/" target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITI CS/12/14/bush.iraq/</a>
Originally Posted By Beaumandy K2man, just because CNN tells you Bush lied and Saddam was framed doesn't mean that he didn't move his WMD's or they have not been found yet. Why did Kerry say they were there and that Saddam needed to be removed? Why did all those democrats vote for the war?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Beau, George W. Bush said, and I quote "It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong." Are you saying he's lying? Just because your radio tells you what to say every day doesn't mean the input is correct.
Originally Posted By woody >>"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," Bush said << The intelligence doesn't tell the whole story. What we are learning NOW is still in progress? I'm afraid Bush dropped the ball here even though it could vindicate him. 1. Saddam's weapons could have went to Syria. 2. Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda is more substantial than previously known. To get to the bottom of this, more investigation of the Saddam regime's documents need to be translated. ------ <a href="http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/2856" target="_blank">http://mediachannel.org/blog/n ode/2856</a> It is almost an article of religious faith among opponents of the Iraq War that Iraq became a terrorist destination only after the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein. But what if that's false, and documents from Saddam's own regime show that his government trained thousands of Islamic terrorists at camps inside Iraq before the war? Sounds like news to us, and that's exactly what is reported this week by Stephen Hayes in The Weekly Standard magazine. Yet the rest of the press has ignored the story, and for that matter the Bush Administration has also been dumb. The explanation for the latter may be that Mr. Hayes also scores the Administration for failing to do more to translate and analyze the trove of documents it's collected from the Saddam era. Mr. Hayes reports that, from 1999 through 2002, "elite Iraqi military units" trained roughly 8,000 terrorists at three different camps--in Samarra and Ramadi in the Sunni Triangle, as well as at Salman Pak, where American forces in 2003 found the fuselage of an aircraft that might have been used for training. Many of the trainees were drawn from North African terror groups with close ties to al Qaeda, including Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Mr. Hayes writes that he had no fewer than 11 corroborating sources, and yesterday he told us he'd added several more since publication. All of this is of more than historical interest, since Americans are still dying in Iraq at the hands of an enemy it behooves us to understand. If Saddam did train terrorists in Iraq before the war, then many of them must still be fighting there and the current "insurgency" can hardly be called a popular uprising rooted in Sunni nationalism. Instead, it is a revanchist operation led by Saddam's apparat and those they trained to use terror to achieve their political goals.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy Thank you Woody, that is what I am talking about. I find it practically impossible for every intel agency on the planet to be so wrong about Iraq.
Originally Posted By gadzuux Whether they were right or they were wrong - iraq is irrelevant to the "war on terror" (or it should have been). Instead, it's all there is. What are we doing about the people who attacked us? Essentially nothing. And how is the iraq war helping the people of iraq? Does anybody think they're better off now than they were three years ago? The 'righties' around here are still in a lather about saddam - forget it - it's over - he's out. He was never important anyway. In the meantime, three years have come and gone, along with 2300 american lives and countless iraqi lives, and things are worse than ever in iraq. But rumsfeld says 'everything's just fine' and that's enough for some people. In 2002 rumsfeld and cheney were saying 'everything's just fine' and they believed it then too. If iraq does descend into full scale civil war, these same people who believe anything bush and the pentagon tell them will say that it's the democrats fault - and they'll believe that too.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA <I find it practically impossible for every intel agency on the planet to be so wrong about Iraq.> Why? You find every Democrat to be wrong about how to run the country.
Originally Posted By ecdc Why is it when poll numbers supported Bush prior to the election, all we heard was how Americans can see through the lies of the media and support the President and understand how important the war is, and now that they don't support him, it's because of the media. Everything and anything is evidence that the conservative worldview is correct. If people like Bush, it's because he's a great President who speaks well to the average American unlike elite liberals like Kerry. If people don't like him, he's a great President for ignoring poll numbers and "doing what it takes" regardless.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy <<And how is the iraq war helping the people of iraq? Does anybody think they're better off now than they were three years ago? >> If you actually think I raq was better under SAddam and that the people in Iraq ae not better off now your so wrong and misinformed it's scary. Even if I was again gave you al ist of things that have happend for the people in Iraq you would still find a way to tell me SAddam was the man and he treated his people with love and respect.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj There was nothing particularly wrong with the intel gathered on Iraq -- except that all of the stuff relating to WMDs was drug up out of the refuse pile when the intel gatherers got their marching orders to produce it. The marching orders to go out and get the intel came after the idea to go to war with Saddam was pretty much already on the train that left the station. It wasn't like, "Hey we found this intel on WMDs and think it might pose a risk to national security," rather it was "Hey, let's go to war with Iraq -- now, go out and find me some satellite photos to support this."
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh That's an interesting theory, but it doesn't explain why people were claiming that Iraq had WMD's throughout the 90's.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj Every since Gulf I, there have been people making those claims -- notably the group that was not happy when we didn't oust Saddam the first time and make a land grab for their oil buddies. Funny how evidence to support those claims never really appeared until the presentation before the U.N. security council in 2003. And what was that evidence? -- a bunch of satellite photos that left a whole lot to interpretation. Based on all the war justifications on Iraq, we have about 10 times the justification to go to war in Iran. Why aren't we being pre-emptive with that regime? Iran has been, and continues to be, a far more dangerous enemy than Saddam Hussein ever was. But now we have spent all of our political capital in Baghdad, and no matter what Iran pulls out of their hat going forward, we really have no options but to sit on our hands and wait for them to do something really nasty. The world just isn't going to tolerate any more U.S. pre-emptive invasions for a long time. So, I guess we ignore the intel on Iran and wait until they kill a few thousand of our citizens before we make our move. To me, that seems eerily like U.S. foreign policy leading up to 9/11.
Originally Posted By woody >>But now we have spent all of our political capital in Baghdad, and no matter what Iran pulls out of their hat going forward, we really have no options but to sit on our hands and wait for them to do something really nasty.<< Without the invasion of Iraq in the attempt to enforce an UN Security Council Resolution, what would a similar threat to Iran mean? It would mean even less credibility. That was what Saddam has counted on. Saddam wanted the United States to show weakness by not using force. He did everything to impede the investigation. He didn't offer his weapons willingly as required by the UN resolution. Iran is being boastful because they know that US resources is tied up in Iraq. However, the story is not finished yet.
