Nonsequitur
New Member
This is from one our men over in the Middle East, posting on one of the gun forums that I read. He is the one responding to the quote. Used with his permission.----Nonsequitur
quote:
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Originally posted by ********.
I need some article to tell me why we went to Iraq. We went because A) Weapons of Mass Destruction, B) Link to Al Qaeda and 9/11, and C) An imminent threat to the US security. Guess what? None of those turned out to be true. Saying that we're in Iraq for the better good of the people does not make up for being lied to, and it was not the biggest reason we went to war in the first place, though it's about the only good by-product of this mess. If liberating oppressed peoples was first on our agenda, there would a litany of places on our list WAY ahead of Iraq. Darfur would be first.
And no, I'm not "liberal." After all, I voted for this idiot.
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Ah, no. We didn't go to war in Iraq because of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Not exactly.
We went to war because Saddam Hussein has been on probabtion since 1991. Problem is that in the 1990s, Saddam's probation officer was a combination of the U.N., which he apparently bought, and Bill Clinton, who just didn't want to be bothered with Iraq policy.
In 2000, Saddam got a new probation officer. Anti-Bush people made a lot of noise about Bush planning to remove Saddam since he came into office as if this was a big deal. A sign that he was waiting for just the right moment to have a war. So what if he was? By any standard of international law, Saddam had been flouting his probabtion for 11 years. Bush could see that. I could see that. Anyone who ever read a news story about the $250,000 bounty Saddam offered for any missile or gun battery that could knock down a coaltion plane patrolling the no-fly areas he agreed to could see it.
So how exactly did we not go to war because of WMDs that didn't exist?
It wasn't about whether or not they existed. Not precisely. It was about transparency.
The burden of proof never rested with us. We never had to prove whether Saddam was in compliance or not. After the liberation we looked long and hard for WMDs and the fact that we didn't find any MEANS NOTHING.
Understand? It was never incumbent upon us to find them or not find them.
It was incumbent upon Saddam in those last few months given to him to just go totally transparent. Remember the checklist of things he had to do to show compliance? Like allowing any weapons scientist the chance to talk to inspectors, even outside of the country where they could be given asylum?
Yeah. That stuff.
So how is it that Bush lied and people died?
Saddam had one last chance. No more stupid Arab face-saving shennanigans. No more lies or obfuscation.
"Do these things and you will continue to be President of Iraq. You started the war in 1991, you lost. You exist now only at our leisure. You rule only by our allowance, but you have continued to hide things. Understand that you are not even allowed to pretend like you have secrets concerning WMDs."
Simple. Easy to understand. I could've done it.
Well, he didn't do it. That is why we went to war.
Not because of real or imagined stockpiles of WMDs. Not because we had to prove anything. He was given an ultimatum and he refused.
I don't know why the post-liberation search for WMDs was so important in retrospect. Like Jon Stewart would judge whether or not the war was justified by whether or not we ever found anything buried out in the desert? Well, he did. Great comedy, I guess. The war was justified before any U.S. soldier set foot on Iraqi soil because Saddam continued to break probation. Period.
On the last day of the search for WMDs by American soldiers there should've been a camera crew filming the last soldier coming out of a hole in the ground, the last place searched for a WMD.
The dusty, tired soldier merely needed to turn the camera and say, "Well, nothing here. Looks like Saddam went and screwed himself out of a really sweet deal with that non-compliance crap. A shame. Otherwise, I'd be back home right now."
And after that, we need never have heard about WMDs again. Only about broken cease-fire treaties and the importance of a little humility and honesty from time to time.
You see, guys like me get tired of explaining this conveniently forgotten history. Three and half years is a long time. The other side, which tries to reduce the war into pithy, easily chanted slogans like "Bush lied and people died" do not have to go into belaboured history lessons like I just did.
Nor lessons on historical precedent concerning the Law of War or international treaties to end hostilities.
They need merely to chant.
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"So they still control the House, Senate, and Oval Office? Well, at least we still have the smug, condescending attitude that cost us the election in the first place."
quote:
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Originally posted by ********.
I need some article to tell me why we went to Iraq. We went because A) Weapons of Mass Destruction, B) Link to Al Qaeda and 9/11, and C) An imminent threat to the US security. Guess what? None of those turned out to be true. Saying that we're in Iraq for the better good of the people does not make up for being lied to, and it was not the biggest reason we went to war in the first place, though it's about the only good by-product of this mess. If liberating oppressed peoples was first on our agenda, there would a litany of places on our list WAY ahead of Iraq. Darfur would be first.
And no, I'm not "liberal." After all, I voted for this idiot.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ah, no. We didn't go to war in Iraq because of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Not exactly.
We went to war because Saddam Hussein has been on probabtion since 1991. Problem is that in the 1990s, Saddam's probation officer was a combination of the U.N., which he apparently bought, and Bill Clinton, who just didn't want to be bothered with Iraq policy.
In 2000, Saddam got a new probation officer. Anti-Bush people made a lot of noise about Bush planning to remove Saddam since he came into office as if this was a big deal. A sign that he was waiting for just the right moment to have a war. So what if he was? By any standard of international law, Saddam had been flouting his probabtion for 11 years. Bush could see that. I could see that. Anyone who ever read a news story about the $250,000 bounty Saddam offered for any missile or gun battery that could knock down a coaltion plane patrolling the no-fly areas he agreed to could see it.
So how exactly did we not go to war because of WMDs that didn't exist?
It wasn't about whether or not they existed. Not precisely. It was about transparency.
The burden of proof never rested with us. We never had to prove whether Saddam was in compliance or not. After the liberation we looked long and hard for WMDs and the fact that we didn't find any MEANS NOTHING.
Understand? It was never incumbent upon us to find them or not find them.
It was incumbent upon Saddam in those last few months given to him to just go totally transparent. Remember the checklist of things he had to do to show compliance? Like allowing any weapons scientist the chance to talk to inspectors, even outside of the country where they could be given asylum?
Yeah. That stuff.
So how is it that Bush lied and people died?
Saddam had one last chance. No more stupid Arab face-saving shennanigans. No more lies or obfuscation.
"Do these things and you will continue to be President of Iraq. You started the war in 1991, you lost. You exist now only at our leisure. You rule only by our allowance, but you have continued to hide things. Understand that you are not even allowed to pretend like you have secrets concerning WMDs."
Simple. Easy to understand. I could've done it.
Well, he didn't do it. That is why we went to war.
Not because of real or imagined stockpiles of WMDs. Not because we had to prove anything. He was given an ultimatum and he refused.
I don't know why the post-liberation search for WMDs was so important in retrospect. Like Jon Stewart would judge whether or not the war was justified by whether or not we ever found anything buried out in the desert? Well, he did. Great comedy, I guess. The war was justified before any U.S. soldier set foot on Iraqi soil because Saddam continued to break probation. Period.
On the last day of the search for WMDs by American soldiers there should've been a camera crew filming the last soldier coming out of a hole in the ground, the last place searched for a WMD.
The dusty, tired soldier merely needed to turn the camera and say, "Well, nothing here. Looks like Saddam went and screwed himself out of a really sweet deal with that non-compliance crap. A shame. Otherwise, I'd be back home right now."
And after that, we need never have heard about WMDs again. Only about broken cease-fire treaties and the importance of a little humility and honesty from time to time.
You see, guys like me get tired of explaining this conveniently forgotten history. Three and half years is a long time. The other side, which tries to reduce the war into pithy, easily chanted slogans like "Bush lied and people died" do not have to go into belaboured history lessons like I just did.
Nor lessons on historical precedent concerning the Law of War or international treaties to end hostilities.
They need merely to chant.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So they still control the House, Senate, and Oval Office? Well, at least we still have the smug, condescending attitude that cost us the election in the first place."
