Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Also, there were moderates like SPP and 2oony giving Bush the benefit of the doubt and even standing up for him until they just couldn't any more.<< Guilty as charged.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Bush disappointed me in lying about the WMDs but I'm still not convinced we were wrong to take out Saddam. You have to wonder if the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria and so forth would even be possible right now if we had not gone in there. Of course, we don't know what the end result of all of this will be but I don't know that they have written the final chapter on his Administration's foreign policy. I shall now duck and cover.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Wahoo, I had no love for Saddam. But I have no love for Kim Jong Il either; that doesn't mean that it would be WISE for us to invade and occupy North Korea. And it was not wise for us to invade and occupy Iraq. The uprisings in Egypt, etc., were indigenous to those countries, and a long time brewing. It makes no sense to say that they couldn't/wouldn't have been possible absent our invading Iraq. In fact, Mubarek was a long-standing FRIEND of ours. If anything, the average Egyptian would be likely to think we wouldn't be wild about deposing him. <Of course, we don't know what the end result of all of this will be but I don't know that they have written the final chapter on his Administration's foreign policy.> I don't either. I said long ago that we won't know even if deposing Saddam was successful - even after all the huge cost of it to both us and millions of dead or displaced Iraqis - until about 5 years AFTER we leave entirely. I don't know what part of "centuries of hostility between Iraq's 3 major groups" the Bush people didn't understand, but that's a country that is somewhat artificial to begin with, having been cobbled together in the 20th century by the British (for THEIR interests) out of 3 groups that never got along - and has only EVER been held together by either a dictator or a foreign power. Will it hold together after we leave? If not, some people will try to hang that on Obama (or his successor) but the real culprit will be Bush and the people under him who didn't really look at the whole history of the place and figure what was likely to happen once they created that vacuum.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper It would be unwise for us to try and invade North Korea because China...and maybe even Russia...would stand in our way. There weren't many nations standing up for Saddam. And, I didn't say that those other uprisings are a result of us invading Iraq...but it isn't impossible to link it. I think it is also fair to pose the question: Do we get Bin Laden in Pakistan if Saddam is still in control in Iraq? I don't know the answer. Maybe we get him even sooner...though I suspect it would have been harder from a military standpoint knowing that the Iraqi's were monitoring every move. Again, I don't want this to sound like a big Bush defense because it isn't intended to be. But, I think the dynamics of the Middle East are much more complicated than we armchair critics allow for.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>I think the dynamics of the Middle East are much more complicated than we armchair critics allow for<< It is complicated, all the more reason not to do things like mislead about the presence of WMDs to make the case for war. That does nothing but hurt our own credibility in the long run.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <It would be unwise for us to try and invade North Korea because China...and maybe even Russia...would stand in our way. There weren't many nations standing up for Saddam.> It would be unwise WITHOUT China or Russia's reaction. <And, I didn't say that those other uprisings are a result of us invading Iraq...but it isn't impossible to link it.> Come on, wahoo, you're better than that. "Isn't impossible to link" is pretty weak sauce. You pretty much have to WANT to link them, because they really don't go together. <I think it is also fair to pose the question: Do we get Bin Laden in Pakistan if Saddam is still in control in Iraq? I don't know the answer. > Again, not really connected. Now do we get him in Pakistan if we weren't in Afghanistan? No. But this was a quick strike Seal Team mission; Saddam couldn't have done a damn thing about it. Hell, the Pakistanis couldn't do anything about it, and you know they were watching us on the Afghan/Pakistan border a lot more closely then Saddam, sitting in Baghdad, would ever have been able to.
Originally Posted By barboy2 ///Bush disappointed me in lying about the WMDs/// Ya I became just a bit disappointed too. But no biggie. I mean there were only a few thousand deaths and limb amputations due to US involvement over it.
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Originally Posted By Mr X Posts 41-48 = an excellent read. I plan to re-read and carefully consider everything everyone has written...just goes to show that reasonable people with differing perspectives CAN have a thoughtful and intelligent conversation despite differences of opinion and perspective (as usual, Barboy's comment was the most shocking and controversial, but still quite valid if you look at this matter from all angles and the deaths and harm it has caused (you can also up that figure bigtime if you consider how many Iraqis have been harmed or killed over these many years) is something we all need to keep in mind).
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Regarding post 47...I don't know if Saddam being alive would have had an effect on the Bin Laden Seal Team mission or not. It would be interesting to know where that Seal Team had been posted in the years prior to taking out Bin Laden. barboy...I don't think any of my remarks...EVER...could be construed as me not caring about the effects any of these wars have had on our young men and women in service.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Regarding post 47...I don't know if Saddam being alive would have had an effect on the Bin Laden Seal Team mission or not. > Why in the world would it have? I think you're straining to see a link when there is none. Our intelligence figured out where bin Laden (probably) was. At that point they set about figuring out how to raid the place and take him out in a small-scale commando mission. That could have been done regardless of Saddam being alive.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>I don't think any of my remarks...EVER...could be construed as me not caring about the effects any of these wars have had on our young men and women in service<< Absolutely not. Barboy's post was a cheap shot, taking the word "disappointed" way out of context.
Originally Posted By Mr X Maybe I'm just missing the main point, but I didn't read it as a cheap shot (nor even a reply to Wahoo at all per se...more of an overall disapproval of the carnage, said in a very sarcastic manner...but that's just my take on the post). ***barboy...I don't think any of my remarks...EVER...could be construed as me not caring about the effects any of these wars have had on our young men and women in service*** I dare say nobody in the history of LPWE has ever even come close to insinuating such a thing.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Well, if I misinterpreted it wrong then my bad. But, I'm not sure how else to read that. I'm not straining to see anything, links or otherwise. I have a cousin who was personal assistant to a high level military man who spent time in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He has tried to tell me about the strategies of Afghanistan and Iraq and the similarities, differences and ways they are tied together and most of it goes over my head. That said, if I was going to go after the school bully on the playground it would be a lot easier for me if I knew his buddy wasn't over by the ball field keeping an eye on me.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Again, wahoo... bin Laden and Saddam were not buddies. Saddam HATED Islamists, because he considered them a threat to his own power. He was a Muslim but NOT an Islamist, and there's a big difference. Saddam was essentially secular, and in fact crushed Islamist-oriented groups within Iraq more than once. Al Qaeda did not even exist in Iraq until after we invaded because Saddam would not let them. He feared and crushed any group that could have threatened his own power, and Al Qaeda was no exception. One can't just think "Well, Saddam hated us and Al Qaeda hated us; therefore they must have been buddies." Things are more complex than that, and things aren't always all about us. Saddam and Al Qaeda were enemies for their own reasons. It bothers me when people try to link Saddam and Al Qaeda because that's exactly what Bush did, and look at the mess that got us into. The only links between them are the ones we created, either bogus (i.e. Bush and Cheney insinuating links that didn't exist, while being careful not to say they did flat out), or real-on-one-level, such as our military does have to figure out how to allocate their resources since we're in both countries. But other than that there were no real links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Even Bush and Cheney, when pressed on it, had to admit as much - after years of insinuating there were and planting that seed in a lot of people's brains, which sadly seems to still be there. And how, exactly, was Saddam supposed to be able to keep a better "eye" on the ballfield (which in this case is Pakistan) than Pakistan's own military and intelligence services? If they didn't know the raid on bin Laden was going to happen, how in the world would Saddam have known? Seriously - you seem to have a view of Saddam and Al Qaeda that is just contrary to reality.
Originally Posted By Lisann22 <<<And gad, I think by mid-decade the tide had turned, but early in the decade (don't remember if you were here THAT long) there were indeed lot of conservatives, some of that immediate post-9/11 and early Iraq mindset of "you're either with us or not a real American.". Also, there were moderates like SPP and 2oony giving Bush the benefit of the doubt and even standing up for him until they just couldn't any more.>>> That's how I remember it!
