Because we have such a lively comment thread going, I've decided to repost this back to the top of the blog:
Light-weight Katie Couric tries to box Condi Rice into admitting that the Bush administration was wrong in it's decision to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein.....sadly for Katie Cupcake, Condi is an adult and far smarter than she is.....
At least Katie is somewhat civil to and respectful of Condi, even though she blindly persists with the Bush-was-wrong-on-Iraq meme, despite Condi's salient, repeated rebuttals.
20 comments:
Very good job by Rice. IMO, Saddam's Iraq was not going to live in peace with it's neighbors and would sooner or later required dealing with. We, under Rumsfeld, botched the aftermath of the easy victory and the "rest is history", as they say.
I don't know why this WMD issue so obsesses people like Couric. Imagine someone in 1947 saying to Churchill, "you went to war in 1939 for a free Poland, and Poland is not now free, but under Stalin's tyranny. Therefore, the war against the Nazis was illegitimate."
The Bush administration WASN'T wrong in its decision to invade Iraq?
Who knew?
Man, how did I know you'd be drawn to this topic like a moth to a flame?
The answer to your first question is that you're correct - they weren't wrong. They just botched the 2003-2007 phase, now corrected. The answer to your second sarcastic question is lots of people.
Man, how did I know you'd be creaming your jeans over the death and injury to thousands of American service men and women and the murder and maiming of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians in an imperialistic war of aggression?
Well, since I've worn my country's uniform to Iraq (have you?), I'll refrain from taking any BS from you over my feelings for my brothers and sisters, American, other Coalition or Iraqi.
Seriously, how can it be to live in a country that you seem to hate and consider the scourge of history?
@Bill "I've worn my country's uniform to Iraq …."
Bill was only following orders, folks. Honest.
He aided in the killing, maiming and dislocating of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. But he was only following orders.
He participated in the ruining a tiny nation that posed no credible threat whatsoever to America or its allies. But he was just following orders.
He says he loves America but his participation in an unjust and unwarranted war helped thrust America down the road toward economic collapse. He was only following orders, though.
He says he loves America but his participation in that war helped make America hated (for good reason) by large numbers of the world's peoples. He is a faithful order follower, though.
So who did Bill's service in Iraq benefit? Not America. Not Americans. America and Americans are being hurt by the Iraq war. Big time.
Bill calls that serving his country. I call it screwing over your country. Big time.
Note to Ed - I suggest you preserve the above post. People benefit from being reminded just who's out there.
Note to Glen - Are you old enough to have spit on the guys coming home from Viet Nam?
For your edification, Bill, I am 70 years old, a graduate of DCNGOCS (although I never applied for a commission) and honorably discharged from the U.S. Army (as were my father, who served in Korea, and his father before him).
But if you want an attaboy from me for blindly and unthinkingly obeying the wicked orders of evil men, it ain't gonna happen.
Any soldier with an ounce of human decency would lay down his arms and suffer a courts marshal before he would obey orders to do what we have done to the Iraqis, a people who never posed the slightest threat to the U.S.
BTW, "I was just obeying orders" didn't fly at Nuremburg and it doesn't cut the mustard with me, either.
(It remains to be seen whether it will buy you any slack from your Maker on Judgment Day. Frankly, I have my doubts.)
You know the saying, "No fool like an old fool."
I'll take it (although you didn't answer) that you didn't participate in the spitting upon Viet Nam vets, although plenty old enough. Most admirable. You also didn't answer how you like living in such a dreadful country. I'll have to guess at that too - you must just seeth with rage every day.
I think I'll refrain from having any further dialogue with you, sir. I violated my own advice to Ed in this regard.
I do seethe with rage, Bill. Not at my country but at those who have sold it - and are selling it - down the river.
My love-of-country wants America to be noble and righteous; wants it to be a force for good in the world; wants it to be admired and respected by peoples everywhere.
TRR, on the other hand....
Glen, doesn't part of being noble and righteus include a willingness, unlike any other country, to intercede on behalf of a nation under the tyrannical thumb of a murdering dictator whose reign of terror extends to his neighbors, not just his own people?
Surely, the admiration and respect we desire from other nations would be diminished considerably by looking the other way as atrocities are committed under our noses.
Did you agree with the 1st Gulf War when we kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait? Without re-debating the point, whether the WMD intel turned out to have been overblown in '02 does not change the fact that Saddam's human-rights violations, UN violations, and known atrocities rose to the level for which intervention was necessary, WMD or no.
Ed, I stood on the ground of the soccer stadium where Uday Hussein tortured members of the Iraqi soccer team for such infractions as missing a penalty kick in an international game. "Dad" like to strap grenades to political prisoners bodies and pull the pin. We know about him gassing the Kurds. Iraq is far better off - my big regret is that GHW Bush didn't finish the job in 1991.
Had we acted unilaterally in Desert Shield, he certainly would have. We were operating under specific UN authority going into Kuwait. To have kept pursuing the Iraqi's down the highway of death, though fun, would have brought outrage from all the world at that point. Regrettable, but that's all Bush could do at the time in my opinion.
And I think war hawks like us expressing regret is partially what gave rise to people like Glen thinking that W went into Iraq to finish the job his daddy couldn't. Nevermind the double-digit UN violations, human-rights outrages, and general badness of that regime.
Bill, in what capacity were you over there? If you want, e-mail me or leave a message on my facebook page of you don't want to get into it here. Either way.
Here is what I don't understand. If you guys are all about deposing despotic regimes, why don't we hear you beating the drums for America to invade China? That would have the added benefit of giving us an excuse to welsh on our debts there.
Maybe you think China is too formidable an opponent. But to be consistent, shouldn't you at least be calling for the U.S. to invade South Africa, North Korea, and Zimbabwe?
Or what about that Middle Eastern terrorist state? The nuclear-armed one that is a clear and present danger to the safety and security of America. The one which has a history of attacking and killing Americans.
Shouldn't it have come ahead of Iraq and Afghanistan on the U.S. invasion list?
OK Glen, I'll give you my take on each of these:
China: while technically communist, the government isn't systematically murdering by the thousands, it's own citizens, or any one elses for that matter. Until it tries to "absorb" Tiawan back into the collective, we have nothing militarily to fear from them at the moment.
South Africa? How does SA rise to the level of a terrorist state?
North Korea: the Norks are killing themselves, plus they have nukes, thanks to Maddy Albright and Jimmeh Carter getting on their knees to appease Kim Jong Il.
Zimbabwe: who gives a shit about Zimbabwe? I know that's harsh, but it's factual. They have no natural resources that we need and they're printing 1billion-dollar currency notes....heh heh. Plus, the African American community in this country would come unglued if we invaded an African nation. Not worth the trouble. It'll implode on it's own.
Which brings us to Iran: Thanks to the UN, Iran is on the verge of being in possession of a nuke or two. That said, other than the ocassional beheading, stoning, or hanging, they are not immediately threatening their neighbors. I'm certain if they posed a real and present existential threat to Israel, we'd have to stop them. If Iran threatens it's other Arab/Muslim neighbors....who really gives a rat's ass? The reason Iraq and Afghanistan stand out is because they are state sponsors of terrorism directed against the US.
Glen, I am of the opinion, maybe not shared by David or Bill, that we need to extricate ourselves from Iraq and Afghanistan at the earliest possible time, for economic reasons alone. Both nations are lost causes politically and will revert back to savage, Islamic barbarism the second we leave, so why waste our blood and treasure any longer?
The Bush doctrine of taking the fight to the terrorists in their backyards instead of trying to police them in ours is a good one, but for how long? We could stay in both countries for 100 years chasing insurgents around and nothing would change from how it is now.
The middle eastern terrorist state I was referring to was Israel, not Iran.
I suspected as much. Glen, come on! Who has Israel terrorized? The quaint, nomadic, put-upon Palestinians? They've never been treated better than in Israel and they've never been treated worse than by Arab countries. The Arab world uses the Palestinians as a cudgel with which to strike Israel and the Jew-hating international community goes along with it. If Hamas and Hezbollah never fired another round into Israel or bombed another busload of civilians, you wouldn't see Israel attack anybody again.
Face it Glen....you hate the evil Zionist Jooooos just for being Jews.
David here: We should leave Iraq/Afghanistan, and possibly Europe as soon as possible. I would have said Korea but recent events preempted me.
We are bleeding time/resources (money) overseas while we are withering back home. I think we should greatly reduce the size of our military and refocus it on the one core mission. It has become bloated and mission creep inherent in any bureacracy has created the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone.
For those of you that don't know, I am in the military.
"Face it Glen....you hate the evil Zionist Jooooos just for being Jews." -Ed
Just for being Jews? Really?
"Back in November 2003, the findings of an unpublished but leaked poll for the European Commission in 15 EU member states found that Israel was regarded as the “top threat to world peace” – ahead of North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran – by 59% of the 7,500 Europeans interviewed. Seven years and two Israeli wars (acts of state terrorism) later, that finding can only have been re-enforced." -Alan Hart
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