Nation Building 101

[OnyxCougar]

Originally posted by tw (paraphrased)
George Jr. and his whole administration lies!! They are not to be trusted!! Don't trust them!! (/paraphrase)


The context of your question, as defined by this thread, is, "why did the US have a smoking gun to justify attacking the Taliban?" That answer was clearly stated by the George Jr administration.

....um.... but... you said....

[Happy Monkey]

At the very least, the Afghanistan connection hasn't been debunked while the Iraq connections have been knocked down one after the other.

[Undertoad]

Most of 'em.

[Happy Monkey]

All the ones I can remember. What am I missing?

[Undertoad]

Amongst them this is what I believe:

The mass graves were not faked and there were more of them than we ever thought, most containing summary executions with a bullet to the forehead. 400,000 estimated killed I think?

Hussein was funding Palestinian terrorism and propping up other terrorists.

Al Queda was in Iraq.

They did have longer range, prohibited, undeclared missiles that the inspectors didn't find. They did have chemical warheads for those missiles. The only thing not found was the chemicals themselves.

The oil-for-food program was totally corrupt and all right under the noses of the UN.

Now I'm not exactly clear on what they really did find at Salman Pak. I found one link pro and one con.

Massive amounts of cash WERE stolen from the country itself to fund the sort ofthing we're seeing now.


That is all... so far

[xoxoxoBruce]

The fact that Saddam was a despot sicko certainly can't be disputed. His danger to the Iraquie people has been proven. The Question is how much of a danger to other countries was he?

[Torrere]

Originally posted by Undertoad
Amongst them this is what I believe:

Hussein was funding Palestinian terrorism and propping up other terrorists.

They did have longer range, prohibited, undeclared missiles that the inspectors didn't find. They did have chemical warheads for those missiles. The only thing not found was the chemicals themselves.

Iraq could have been a threat to Israel.

[richlevy]

Originally posted by Undertoad
Amongst them this is what I believe:

The mass graves were not faked and there were more of them than we ever thought, most containing summary executions with a bullet to the forehead. 400,000 estimated killed I think?

Hussein was funding Palestinian terrorism and propping up other terrorists.

Al Queda was in Iraq.

They did have longer range, prohibited, undeclared missiles that the inspectors didn't find. They did have chemical warheads for those missiles. The only thing not found was the chemicals themselves.

The oil-for-food program was totally corrupt and all right under the noses of the UN.

Now I'm not exactly clear on what they really did find at Salman Pak. I found one link pro and one con.

Massive amounts of cash WERE stolen from the country itself to fund the sort ofthing we're seeing now.


That is all... so far

None of which is a 'clear and present' danger to the US.

The 45-minute launchable rockets that were first mentioned in the rush to invade had the range of a mortar or RPG, far short of the 3000 miles it would take to hit the US.

If Hussein moved outside his borders, the Arab nations and the UN would have ask for help and we would have had a real coalition.

Any other actions that we could prove against Hussein in financing terror might justify a raid, but not as an excuse to overrun a country.

Their have been very few cases in history in which the 'good guys' overran a country. Hitler and Hussein both were very fond of making up excuses to invade other countries, but, if we are in Bush's white-hat. black-hat world, rarely do the 'white hats' do it. We have always criticized countries like China when they annexed Tibet.

As for the case for the US to go to war to save Hussein's people, the Human Rights Watch addressed that rationale better than I could. Human Rights Watch on the Iraq War as Humanitarian Intervention

We might as well face the fact that Iraq was an itch that GWB had to scratch and 9/11 gave him the power to do so. As a result we have 12,000 troops in the real war on terror in Afganistan, trying to prevent civil war and hunt down Bin Laden, and 10 times that number in the sideshow in Iraq?

If we had 130,000 troops in Afghanistan, don't you think we would have a better chance of finding Bin Laden?

If we hadn't invaded Iraq, we would have kept the world's goodwill from the events of 9/11 and had a real chance to destroy Al-Queda in it's own backyard. Instead we are fighting a two-front war (not counting the Balkans) and have turned a functioning country, even if it was a brutal dictatorship) into a lawless no-man's land and terrorist spawning ground.

[Undertoad]

bin Laden is in Pakistan so no.

[Torrere]

Afghanistan is a screw-up. We're losing and cannot win, the people we went there to kill are alive (if probably not all that well), humanitarian groups are backing out (have already backed out?), and we have fermented greater chaos.

Afghanistan was a way to channel the nation's anger at the destruction of the towers to a place very far away that didn't matter there much. I don't know of anything that we can do right in Afghanistan, we're spending money and incurring enemies, so why don't we get up and leave?

[Undertoad]

Because Pakistan and Iran are both potentially our worst enemies and it's absolutely critical that it not become a failed state right next to them and that we maintain a big ol' US interest right there.

[Torrere]

It is a failed state, everyone has a gun, the United States and Karzai exert little control beyond the capital, and even Kabul has been said to be worse off than it was during the rule of the Taliban.

[tw]

Originally posted by richlevy
None of which is a 'clear and present' danger to the US.

Lets not forget the latest reason given by George Jr in his latest speech and news conference to justify the invasion of Iraq. The murder of Daniel Pearl.

[richlevy]

I just heard that GW was told by Powell that if he invades Iraq, "Just remember, if you break it, you buy it".

It looks like the President was given a lot of good advice, on reasons not to go there, on how messy things could get, and on how many troops would be needed.

He just ignored them.

In my mind I cannot fault GWB more than Clinton, or the other Bush on 9/11. I can, however, fault him for his prosecution of the Iraq war. He broke it, and we Americans will be paying for it for the next decade.