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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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 Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
And 9-11 showed that if anything the neo cons were right that the mideast as it was was a threat to the US.
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Hold on. The threat to the US was an stateless Umayyad revivalist fighting force comprised mainly of Saudis being sheltered by a Sharia-espousing Pashtun theocratic coalition in a country that was little more than a tribal confederation. Where does Iraq fit into that? And don't say Zarqawi b/c he was a Kurdish guest. |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Where does Iraq fit into that? |
It doesn't. But the neo-cons exploited 9-11 and made it fit. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:11 am Post subject: |
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| catman wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| catman wrote: |
| He said that he had no WMD. |
Why should anyone have taken anything Saddam ever said at face value? More to the point: why are you defending Saddam's statements (other than the obvious that you do not care about him at all but he serves as a useful pretext to attack American policy)? |
Defend? I'm just pointing out the obvious. He said he didn't have any WMD. There was no WMD. The chicken hawks were wrong. |
Look, I didn't think we should have invaded Iraq. I didn't think Iraq was a threat whatsoever to the United States. I also didn't think Iraq had any WMD beyond some crappy chemical weapons that would not have been used against the US or its interests. I also am fully aware that the Bush administration took only info that helped support its beliefs, while it ignored anything contrary to those beliefs.
That being said, why the heck should have we believed Saddam? Why should anyone have believed the man? Just look at the man's past. Back in 2003, do you really think anyone with any sense would have taken Saddam's word? And if yes, why?? |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:20 am Post subject: |
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| jkelly80 wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
And 9-11 showed that if anything the neo cons were right that the mideast as it was was a threat to the US.
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Hold on. The threat to the US was an stateless Umayyad revivalist fighting force comprised mainly of Saudis being sheltered by a Sharia-espousing Pashtun theocratic coalition in a country that was little more than a tribal confederation. Where does Iraq fit into that? And don't say Zarqawi b/c he was a Kurdish guest. |
1. Why umayyad? I personally think they are trying to become like the Abassids myself. Umayyad is a little too old school, even for Al-qaeda.
2. Wouldn't you say Zarqawi was a guest of the Kurds? Or kurd's guest? First time I read it I thought, "No, the dude was jordanian!" Then I realized what you meant.
But seriously, your question is going to inspire Joo to cut and paste an article about how Iraq was just part of the bigger issue, and that it was really connected to saudi somehow, etc. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:45 am Post subject: |
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jkelly80 here is your answer:
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he failure of the Bush team to produce any weapons of mass destruction (W.M.D.'s) in Iraq is becoming a big, big story. But is it the real story we should be concerned with? No. It was the wrong issue before the war, and it's the wrong issue now.
Why? Because there were actually four reasons for this war: the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason.
The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there � a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured. This terrorism bubble said that plowing airplanes into the World Trade Center was O.K., having Muslim preachers say it was O.K. was O.K., having state-run newspapers call people who did such things "martyrs" was O.K. and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such "martyrs" was O.K. Not only was all this seen as O.K., there was a feeling among radical Muslims that suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and the West, because we had gone soft and their activists were ready to die.
The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighboring government � and 98 percent of terrorism is about what governments let happen � got the message. If you talk to U.S. soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about. |
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06/04/nyt.friedman/
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Arabia 'real reason for war'
NEWS.com.au ^ | April 3, 2004
FORGET Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The real reason the United States invaded Iraq was Saudi Arabia, according to a US intelligence analyst.
Dr George Friedman, chairman of the United States private sector intelligence company Stratfor, said the US had settled on WMD as a simple justification for the war and one which it expected the public would readily accept.
Dr Friedman, in Australia on a business trip, said the US administration never wanted to explain the complex reasons for invading Iraq, keeping them from both the public and their closest supporters.
"That, primarily, was the fact that Saudi Arabia was facilitating the transfer of funds to al-Qaeda, was refusing to cooperate with the US and believed in its heart of hearts that the US would never take any action against them," he said.
Dr Friedman said the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US prompted the strategy to hunt down al-Qaeda wherever it was to be found. But that proved exceedingly difficult.
"The US was desperate. There were no good policy choices," he said.
"Then the US turned to the question - we can't find al-Qaeda so how can we stop the enablers of al-Qaeda."
He said those enablers, the financiers and recruiters, existed in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
But the Saudi government variously took the view that this wasn't true or that they lacked the ability and strength to act, he said.
Dr Friedman said in March last year, the Saudis responded to US pressure by asking the US to remove all its forces and bases from their territory. To their immense surprise, the US did just that, relocating to Qatar.
He said Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda shared a number of beliefs including that the US could not fight and win a war in the region and was casualty averse. There was a need to change that perception.
But close by was Iraq, the most strategically located nation in the Middle East, bordering Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey and Iran.
"If we held Iraq we felt first there would be dramatic changes of behaviour from the Saudis," he said. "We could also manipulate the Iranians into a change of policy and finally also lean on the Syrians.
"It wasn't a great policy. It happened to be the only policy available."
Dr Friedman said US President George W Bush faced the difficulty of explaining this policy, particularly to the Saudis. Moves to link Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda failed completely.
"They then fell on WMD for two reasons," he said.
"Nobody could object to WMD and it was the one thing that every intelligence agency knew was true.
"We knew we were going to find them. And we would never have to reveal the real reasons.
"The massive intelligence failure was that everybody including Saddam thought he had WMD. He behaved as if he had WMD. He was conned by his own people." |
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1110567/posts |
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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:23 am Post subject: |
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1. Friedman is a ninny. He takes the broadest, least factual position he can and fills in it with appeals to emotion and anecdotal evidence. "Talk to the soldiers, America! They get it!" They get what?
2. If this was just an elaborate spanking of Arab Muslims, why even address the WMD issue at all? If any and all diplomatic considerations are irrelevant, why not just leave it at that? We needed someone to spank, publicly, and it was worth it to lose any soft power leverage we had after 9/11. I mean, we got Qadafi on board, right? Remember him? Eight hundred miles to the west, out of range of anything of import? That guy? He came around. I'm sure we'll get the stateless groups living in caves in Central Asia as well. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:56 am Post subject: |
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[quote="jkelly80"]
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| 1. Friedman is a ninny. He takes the broadest, least factual position he can and fills in it with appeals to emotion and anecdotal evidence. "Talk to the soldiers, America! They get it!" They get what? |
your opinion
| Quote: |
2. If this was just an elaborate spanking of Arab Muslims, why even address the WMD issue at all? If any and all diplomatic considerations are irrelevant, why not just leave it at that? We needed someone to spank, publicly, and it was worth it to lose any soft power leverage we had after 9/11. I mean, we got Qadafi on board, right? Remember him? Eight hundred miles to the west, out of range of anything of import? That guy? He came around. I'm sure we'll get the stateless groups living in caves in Central Asia as well. |
IF the US said the real reason it would make it harder for Saudi Arabia to go after Al Qaeda cause it would just seem like they were giving in to the US.
One of the reasons that Qaedaffi got on board was that what happened to Saddam scared him. It wasn't the only reason but it was part of it. But you see now that the US isn't bothering him.
Saddam had years to give up his war, if he had there the US would not have gone after him. there wasn't any evidence that he had changed his ways.
If there is any doubt about what the objectives of the US were see that the US is building military bases in Iraq for the long term. |
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