Why we went to warFollow

Ok. I'm getting really freaking tired of all the armchair quarterbacking about this. Anyone who thinks we "went to war to find WMD", please read this:

Why we went to war

Ok. There are a lot of "Whereas" statements at the beginning. And yes, several of them mention Iraqs WMD. There are 23 "Whereas" paragraphs. 9 of them mention WMD. Only 2 of them mention them in the context of Iraq "having" them. The others are either historical, or talk about capability and development. I just want to set that straight.

Oh. Cease-fire is mentioned in 5 of the "whereas" sections. In all cases they're specifically talking about a failure to meet the requirements of the cease-fire from the first gulf war.


Also relevant is that the bottom section actually talks about the powers granted to the President:



Ok. That's a "declaration of war", as today's politics uses the term.

I'd also like to point out what the resolution says. Under Authorization:





Does anyone see a single word that mentions "finding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction"? No. I did not think so.


You get bonus points if you go and look up UN resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677 and 688.



Can we please lay off the "OMG! We didn't find WMD, so the war wasn't justified" arguments? That's really not why we went to war...

Yeah, what smasharoo said.

Ok. I want to make this clarification, again. The fact that Iraq posed a "DIRECT THREAT TO THE SECURITY OF THE US" was not a decision made by the Bush administration. It was already established by act of Congress.

The *only* issue here is whether methods other then war were likely to result in a resolution of that threat.

10 years of Iraq failing to meet more then token requirements of the Cease Fire agreement Smash. The UN preparing to remove the sanctions that were arguably the only thing preventing Iraq from going back to what it was doing prior to the Gulf war. The UN refusing to take any military action against Iraq. Zero indication or evidence that Saddam was going to change his goals of hurting the US by whatever means was available to him. Zero evidence that he was going to abandon plans to build more bio and chem weapons. Zero evidence that he would abandon efforts to build a nuclear weapons program.

At what point do you decide you have no choice Smash? Do we wait until Iraq builds a nuke, hands it to a terrorist and helps them ship it into NY harbor and set it off? Or do we take action first?... Which is the more responsible action? Remember, this isn't about being nice to Iraq. It's about protecting the security of the US and its citizens.


What were the other option Smash? More talking? We had 10 years of that. More "no fly zones"? We had 10 years of those too, and the UN was about to pull us out of that anyway. 10 more years of weapons inspectors? Yeah. That worked so well... 10 more years of asking nicely for the data on their WMD so we even had a clue what they could or could not build? 10 more years of asking them to stop killing Kurds and Shiites? Please. I want to know. What method other then war would have resolved this threat? Again. The existence of Iraq as a threat is not determined or established in this document. Only the method of removing that threat is. If you can't tell me a non-military way of removing that threat, then you can't say the war was unjustified.

Yeah! What gbaji said!

10 years of North Korea failing to meet more then token requirements of the Cease Fire agreement Gbaji. The UN preparing to remove the sanctions that were arguably the only thing preventing North Korea from going back to what it was doing prior to the Korean War. The UN refusing to take any military action against North Korea. Zero indication or evidence that Kim was going to change his goals of hurting the US by whatever means was available to him. Zero evidence that he was going to abandon plans to build more bio and chem weapons. Zero evidence that he would abandon efforts to build a nuclear weapons program.


When do we invade?

Oh wait, I remember, we actually let them BUILD NUCLEAR WEAPONS instead while talking.

It was an elective war. There was ZERO compelling reason to invade Iraq. It was no more a threat to the US than ten other nation states we chose to ignore were.

WMD are cited as the rationale for war because they were used as the basis of the threat to the US.

You're about a year too late in making this argument, not even Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld argue there was a threat to the US posed by Iraq at this point. It's the suffering of the Iraqi people that caused us to invade to resuce them.

If you're going to ******* the party line at least stay in step with the guys who's ***** you're slobbering all over.

Smash:

Kim has not made threats against the US. Kim has not attempted to assassinate a former US president. Kim's primary source of support is a strong trading partner of the US (China). In other words, while we don't particularly like North Korea, the odds of them doing anything directly to us or vice versa are extremely small.

Not a good example.

You also didn't answer my question. At the time the resolution was passed, the "threat" of Iraq was already established. So, within the context of the resolution, exactly what "other methods" do you think would have resolved that threat?


Reinman:

The very quote you posted makes my point. It's not about what Saddam could do right then. It was about what he might do in the future if not stopped. Why is that confusing? Present... Future. One leads to the other.

Um... Where's the lie? Heck. The speach just underscores my point:




Again. He didn't determine the threat. Others did. He just chose to act. Did you read the whole speach? It's pretty clear on the "He can't do much today, but will be a huge threat tomorrow if we don't take action" concept.

Maybe my reading comprehension is just higher then yours? To me, Bush is outlining a list of reasons why we should be eliminating the regime in Iraq. He presents a pretty strong case that if we don't, it'll go back to what it was doing before the UN sanctions were applied. Um... There is *zero* disagreement that Iraq was producing bio/chem weapons, and was actively working on nuclear weapons. That information comes from the UN inspectors. Not US intelligence. Not some questionable Nigerian contact. And not photos of some weather trucks mistaken for chemical weapon manufacturers.

The fact is that while a small amount of intelligence did turn out to be incorrect, the vast majority was not. Iraq did have the capability to build biological and chemical weapons. They did have a nuclear weapons program. While they may not have had huge stockpiles of WMD in 2002, that's not really the issue. If you read the speaches Bush gave, they are all laden with statements about what Iraq will do down the line if not controlled. The reason you and everyone else thinks it was about what Iraq had present in their country at the time is becuase the news outlets choose about 15 seconds of a speach to air. Inevitably, they would quote just the one line where Bush would say that Iraq had WMD. When you read the transcripts, you find that that statement was a tiny part of the speach, and was not really even a significant part of it. It was always about the threat that Iraq would pose if UN sanctions were lifted while allowing Saddam to remain in power. It was never really about what WMD Iraq actually had at the time.

Pcik a thread.

I answrered most of that on the "John Kerry" thred on OOT. Pick one you want to discuss this one and let me knnow. It's enough of a waste of my time arguing with someone who Asserts that Iraq was more of a threat to the US than a country with Long Range missles on the verge of having Nuclear weapons (which everyone is reasonably confident they now do). Kim Jung Il has threatened the US more times than can I can count.

Here's one random example:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0206-01.htm

North Korea is entitled to launch a pre-emptive strike against the US rather than wait until the American military have finished with Iraq, the North's foreign ministry told the Guardian yesterday.

Warning that the current nuclear crisis is worse than that in 1994, when the peninsula stood on the brink of oblivion, a ministry spokesman called on Britain to use its influence with Washington to avert war.

"The United States says that after Iraq, we are next", said the deputy director Ri Pyong-gap, "but we have our own countermeasures. Pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the US."

His comments came on a day when tension was apparent in Pyongyang, with an air-raid drill that cleared the city's streets and the North's announcement that it has begun full-scale operations at the Yongbyon nuclear plant, the suspected site of weapons-grade plutonium production.

Sorry if they don't mention it enough on the FoX News ticker for you to be aware of it.

Anyway, pick a thread and let me know.

I don't notice. It's a cyclical thing. I'll post something they disagree with and suddenly whoever seems to be the most diametrically opposed to my views will be their new hero. Gbaji, Thundra, whoever.

How many times was it referenced in this speach that Saddam had WMD's? I lose count, but I know it is at least 3 times. Then they found nothing, so how do we know that the threat was ever there? You can't arrest somebody for acting suspicious! Where is the proof that Iraq was a treat to the US security.




Actually, I have disagreed with Smash on a few issues, but have found it almost pointless to argue with him, as he chnges tactics none-stop, you can never really nail him down.

Also Smash's example there supports my arguement from another thread, read this and you will see why I liked the comment, or don't and stay in your happy little ignorant world.

This one will do...

Um. Again. Where's the direct threat against the US? Sure. Kim's government is talking trash, but at the end of the day, pretty much every analyst knows it's just talk.

We aren't invading North Korea (whether it's on the "list" of evildoers or not), for exactly the same reason we didn't invade East Germany during the cold war.

There is no comparison between N. Korea and Iraq. N. Korea has a need for allies. It has a need to maintain peace. It actually cares about the diplomatic consequences of its actions. Iraq did not. At what point will people understand the difference?


Guys. It's not just about having WMD. Or being able to build WMD. It's also a willingness to use them. Those factors combined are what made Iraq unique in terms of threats.


But hey! Let's just look at that Bush speach that the good Friar posted:





Wow! Look at that? Bush is saying it's a combination of factors that makes Iraq a threat. Not just one thing... And here I thought it was just because he had X number of WMD?


But I'm sure that Fox news is all we need to listen to. They'll give us a "fair and balanced" account of what's really important, right?

Note the FORMER part, she got let go for speaking her mind. Was at a spoken word thing with Henry Rollins a month back and he mentioned her and i did some looking up on internet, of course now i cant remember name for life of me.

Look, whatevver. I'm not wasting my time arguing this with you. You're right, everyone knows N Korea is all talk even though they actaully did build nuclear WMD and are led by a guy who's quite likely clinically insane.

On the other hand there was a flaming metor flying on a deadly collision course with the US named Iraq and the only way to avoid the destruction of America as we know it was to invade when we did.

Thank god we invaded in time to avoid the terrible, horrible, yet oddly unspecefic consequence of not doing so.

I'll say it again. It's an oppinion. You are of the oppinion that Iraq posed a massive danger to the US and the only way to avoid whatever disaster it is would have happened if we didn't invade was to go in when we did.

I disagree.

You started this topic to argue that the reason we went to Iraq was because Congress thought it was an immediate threat. They never declared that. They allowed the president to mkake that determination.

They are perfectly justified in disagreeing with his determination after the fact. They didn't vote to invade Iraq, they voted to allow Bush to make the determination on if there was a threat enough posed by Iraq to do so and to alocate troops as he saw fit.

None of that compells them to agree with his determination any more than I'm compelled to agree with every position taken by a Senator I vote for. I frequently disagree, and if I disagree strenuosly enough I won't vote for him the next time.

Exactly what you will see the US people do with G W Bush in November.

I can hardly wait.

Now, please, if you have a point to make, do it. Otherwise you're just reacting to what other people post with pathetic trite refutals of tiny individual points while the weigh of the validity of the rest of the argument collapes onto your head.

Edited, Mon May 10 19:16:44 2004 by Smasharoo

That's WMD. Your point in posting this thread was that we went to Iraq NOT because of WMD, isn't it? I'm honestly confused now. Not in a pretend "you're an idiot" sort of "I'm confused, which is it??" kind of way. In a "I have no idea what the point of your posting this topic was" kind of way.





None of it's unclear. It's all related to WMD though, and your argument is, or at least was an hour ago that the reason we invaded Iraq wasn't to find WMD.

I refer you to your first post where you started this topic with this sentance:

Ok. I'm getting really freaking tired of all the armchair quarterbacking about this. Anyone who thinks we "went to war to find WMD", please read this:

I'm struggling to see how you're making that case here.



Look you can't have it both ways.

If you want to hold up the highly technical text of the resolution that was voted on and use it to impeach the belief that we went to war over WMD, you can't ignore the rest of the technical reality. Either stick to the text as written and the logistical technicalities that you feel make your case or don't.

Arguing that the technicalities apply to your side of the argument, but silly arm waving generalizations apply to the other side is moronic and pointless. Thusfar on this thread that's all you've done.

1. We didn't go into Iraq over WMD even though Bush implied it 100 times because it's not in the technical language of the resolution passed by Congress.

1a. The fact that there's no technical language in the resolution resulting in congress stating Iraq posed an imediate threat is silly and irrelevant and "we all knnow they knew it meant something other than it litterally said"

2. Iraq is dangerous because Saddam threatened the Us.

2a. N Korea isn't dangerous when they threaten the US because "we know they're all talk."

You make the arguments for your case based upon whichever viewpoinnt is best for them. If the technical language seems best, that's the critical source. If the technical language hurts them, it's a silly formality.

I know what your point of view is. I don't know what you're basing it on. Pick one consistent source of facts and we can have a discussion.

If you're going to argue based on a certain document, and then ignore opposing arguments based upon the exact same document you, yourself offer up as source what's the point?

You might as well just post "Bush co[/b]ck tastes better than all other co[b]ck!!!" It's as convincing.

Let me again ask you to PRETTY PLEASE get to the point. What's the THESIS of your post?

Congress thought there was an immediate threat from Iraq, unrelated to WMD and demanded we incade by way of passing the resolution.

Is that it? Help a brother out, you're all over the fuc[b][/b]king place, I literally have no idea what you're trying to say.

Shoot us a one sentance summary please.