Stop pretending

[eagle1462010]

The US had a favored candidate and that's good.

No, as it turns out, and this is the point you are missing, it's not good when that person turns out to be an Iranian sympathizer.

How many votes did we (America) cast? And how, given how we're so hated by Iraqis, did we convince them to vote for a specific candidate?

At great expense to this nation we toppled the leader of Iraq and now you are going to argue that we just left the future of Iraq to chance. That would make either you or Bush an idiot depending on one's beliefs. I'm betting on it being you.

Iraq folded under Obama's watch............................not Bush's.....................

 

[SwimExpert]

Many of you can now stop pretending Bush didn't lie his way into a war with Iraq.

Smoking gun email exposes Blair on Iraq

The damning memo, from Secretary of State Colin Powell to President George Bush, was written on March 28, 2002, a week before Bush’s famous summit with Blair at his Crawford ranch in Texas.

In it, Powell tells Bush that Blair ‘will be with us’ on military action. Powell assures the President: ‘The UK will follow our lead’.




The disclosure is certain to lead for calls for Sir John Chilcot to reopen his inquiry into the Iraq War if, as is believed, he has not seen the Powell memo.

A second explosive memo from the same cache also reveals how Bush used ‘spies’ in the Labour Party to help him to manipulate British public opinion in favour of the war.

The documents, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, are part of a batch of secret emails held on the private server of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton which U.S. courts have forced her to reveal.

Former Tory Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: ‘The memos prove in explicit terms what many of us have believed all along: Tony Blair effectively agreed to act as a frontman for American foreign policy in advance of any decision by the House of Commons or the British Cabinet.

The former Prime Minister has always hotly denied the claim that the two men signed a deal ‘in blood’ at Crawford to embark on the war, which started on March 20, 2003.

The Powell document, headed ‘Secret... Memorandum for the President’, lifts the lid on how Blair and Bush secretly plotted the war behind closed doors at Crawford.

Powell says to Bush: ‘He will present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause,’ adding that Blair has the presentational skills to ‘make a credible public case on current Iraqi threats to international peace’.

Five months after the summit, Downing Street produced the notorious ‘45 minutes from doom’ dossier on Saddam Hussein’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction. After Saddam was toppled, the dossier’s claims were exposed as bogus.

Nowhere in the memo is a diplomatic route suggested as the preferred option.

Instead, Powell says that Blair will also advise on how to ‘handle calls’ for the ‘blessing’ of the United Nations Security Council, and to ‘demonstrate that we have thought through “the day after” ’ – in other words, made adequate provision for a post-Saddam Iraq.

The Neo-Cons have released their official response to your thread:

 

[Tehon]

The US had a favored candidate and that's good.

No, as it turns out, and this is the point you are missing, it's not good when that person turns out to be an Iranian sympathizer.

How many votes did we (America) cast? And how, given how we're so hated by Iraqis, did we convince them to vote for a specific candidate?

At great expense to this nation we toppled the leader of Iraq and now you are going to argue that we just left the future of Iraq to chance. That would make either you or Bush an idiot depending on one's beliefs. I'm betting on it being you.

Iraq folded under Obama's watch............................not Bush's.....................

Iraq was abandoned......as per the plan already set in motion.

 

[Rustic]

Many of you can now stop pretending Bush didn't lie his way into a war with Iraq.

Smoking gun email exposes Blair on Iraq

The damning memo, from Secretary of State Colin Powell to President George Bush, was written on March 28, 2002, a week before Bush’s famous summit with Blair at his Crawford ranch in Texas.

In it, Powell tells Bush that Blair ‘will be with us’ on military action. Powell assures the President: ‘The UK will follow our lead’.




The disclosure is certain to lead for calls for Sir John Chilcot to reopen his inquiry into the Iraq War if, as is believed, he has not seen the Powell memo.

A second explosive memo from the same cache also reveals how Bush used ‘spies’ in the Labour Party to help him to manipulate British public opinion in favour of the war.

The documents, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, are part of a batch of secret emails held on the private server of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton which U.S. courts have forced her to reveal.

Former Tory Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: ‘The memos prove in explicit terms what many of us have believed all along: Tony Blair effectively agreed to act as a frontman for American foreign policy in advance of any decision by the House of Commons or the British Cabinet.

The former Prime Minister has always hotly denied the claim that the two men signed a deal ‘in blood’ at Crawford to embark on the war, which started on March 20, 2003.

The Powell document, headed ‘Secret... Memorandum for the President’, lifts the lid on how Blair and Bush secretly plotted the war behind closed doors at Crawford.

Powell says to Bush: ‘He will present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause,’ adding that Blair has the presentational skills to ‘make a credible public case on current Iraqi threats to international peace’.

Five months after the summit, Downing Street produced the notorious ‘45 minutes from doom’ dossier on Saddam Hussein’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction. After Saddam was toppled, the dossier’s claims were exposed as bogus.

Nowhere in the memo is a diplomatic route suggested as the preferred option.

Instead, Powell says that Blair will also advise on how to ‘handle calls’ for the ‘blessing’ of the United Nations Security Council, and to ‘demonstrate that we have thought through “the day after” ’ – in other words, made adequate provision for a post-Saddam Iraq.

Who cares, most of congress went along with it. Progressives on both sides did...
Get over it... It's a mistake all sides made.
Was not the first will not be the last.

Embrace the suck

 

[eagle1462010]

The US had a favored candidate and that's good.

No, as it turns out, and this is the point you are missing, it's not good when that person turns out to be an Iranian sympathizer.

How many votes did we (America) cast? And how, given how we're so hated by Iraqis, did we convince them to vote for a specific candidate?

At great expense to this nation we toppled the leader of Iraq and now you are going to argue that we just left the future of Iraq to chance. That would make either you or Bush an idiot depending on one's beliefs. I'm betting on it being you.

Iraq folded under Obama's watch............................not Bush's.....................

Iraq was abandoned......as per the plan already set in motion.

In wars, plans are subject to change..................all plans depend on the situation on the ground at the time of departure.....................

If the intel is that it would leave a vacuum in INTEL and cause the place to be overrun............then the acting CNC of that time should make the decision based on CURRENT EVENTS and not something that was stated years before.......................

The CURRENT CNC made that call, not the previous.......................To say it's the other guys fault is utter Horse Hockey.................the new man in charge is in CHARGE, not the old one................and is RESPONSIBLE for his decisions........................

It is an excuse for the continued policy blunders under OBAMA.................not Bush....................

BUT BUSH..............BUT BUSH....................BUT BUSH.......................

 

[Tehon]

No, as it turns out, and this is the point you are missing, it's not good when that person turns out to be an Iranian sympathizer.

How many votes did we (America) cast? And how, given how we're so hated by Iraqis, did we convince them to vote for a specific candidate?

At great expense to this nation we toppled the leader of Iraq and now you are going to argue that we just left the future of Iraq to chance. That would make either you or Bush an idiot depending on one's beliefs. I'm betting on it being you.

Iraq folded under Obama's watch............................not Bush's.....................

Iraq was abandoned......as per the plan already set in motion.

In wars, plans are subject to change..................all plans depend on the situation on the ground at the time of departure.....................

If the intel is that it would leave a vacuum in INTEL and cause the place to be overrun............then the acting CNC of that time should make the decision based on CURRENT EVENTS and not something that was stated years before.......................

The CURRENT CNC made that call, not the previous.......................To say it's the other guys fault is utter Horse Hockey.................the new man in charge is in CHARGE, not the old one................and is RESPONSIBLE for his decisions........................

It is an excuse for the continued policy blunders under OBAMA.................not Bush....................

BUT BUSH..............BUT BUSH....................BUT BUSH.......................

I don't make excuses for Obama, I thought that would be clear by now. And I'm not placing all the blame on the other guy either. But I'm not going to deny how all this got started which many Americans don't seem willing to admit. That the American people were manipulated willfully by the President and his administration into a war that was not necessary.

And for your information the decision to allow a vacuum in Iraq and create a space for Sunni insurgents to fill was implemented under Bush. Obama's failure was in not ending the policy. It's a long read but informative.
The Redirection - The New Yorker

 

[eagle1462010]

How many votes did we (America) cast? And how, given how we're so hated by Iraqis, did we convince them to vote for a specific candidate?

At great expense to this nation we toppled the leader of Iraq and now you are going to argue that we just left the future of Iraq to chance. That would make either you or Bush an idiot depending on one's beliefs. I'm betting on it being you.

Iraq folded under Obama's watch............................not Bush's.....................

Iraq was abandoned......as per the plan already set in motion.

In wars, plans are subject to change..................all plans depend on the situation on the ground at the time of departure.....................

If the intel is that it would leave a vacuum in INTEL and cause the place to be overrun............then the acting CNC of that time should make the decision based on CURRENT EVENTS and not something that was stated years before.......................

The CURRENT CNC made that call, not the previous.......................To say it's the other guys fault is utter Horse Hockey.................the new man in charge is in CHARGE, not the old one................and is RESPONSIBLE for his decisions........................

It is an excuse for the continued policy blunders under OBAMA.................not Bush....................

BUT BUSH..............BUT BUSH....................BUT BUSH.......................

I don't make excuses for Obama, I thought that would be clear by now. And I'm not placing all the blame on the other guy either. But I'm not going to deny how all this got started which many Americans don't seem willing to admit. That the American people were manipulated willfully by the President and his administration into a war that was not necessary.

And for your information the decision to allow a vacuum in Iraq and create a space for Sunni insurgents to fill was implemented under Bush. Obama's failure was in not ending the policy. It's a long read but informative.
The Redirection - The New Yorker

The Commander on the battlefield at the time of the decision to leave is responsible................PERIOD.................
Not the one who no longer is in charge...........

All the deflection in the world will not change that....................

I was never for nation building from the onset.....................I said go in, kill as many as possible..........then leave...................or we would get stuck..........

Bush thought if we gave them Freedom that they would change the course over there...............and sank into the quicksand of the Middle East like all leaders have done from the world there................Religion is THEIR GOV'T................and that hasn't changed for a very long time................It was misguided thinking, that we could force them out of that mentality................................

Many before over History have done the same thing...................

 

[eagle1462010]

 

[eagle1462010]

 

[The Rabbi]

The US had a favored candidate and that's good.

No, as it turns out, and this is the point you are missing, it's not good when that person turns out to be an Iranian sympathizer.

In Libya we had no strategy for succession after Ghaddafi. How'd that work out?

In my opinion none of this mess is working out well. We had a strategy in Libya for after the fall of Ghaddafi. Open a National bank and create an oil company. Sounds about right, doesn't it.

I see youv'e defaulted to "Klown Mode". Therefore you are not a serious debater.
Bye.

 

[The Rabbi]

The US had a favored candidate and that's good.

No, as it turns out, and this is the point you are missing, it's not good when that person turns out to be an Iranian sympathizer.

How many votes did we (America) cast? And how, given how we're so hated by Iraqis, did we convince them to vote for a specific candidate?

At great expense to this nation we toppled the leader of Iraq and now you are going to argue that we just left the future of Iraq to chance. That would make either you or Bush an idiot depending on one's beliefs. I'm betting on it being you.

So we left a stable Iraq that had held two free elections when Bush left office. Since Obama entered office IRaq has deteriorated into a failed state, with Obama deposing the elected president and replacing him.
So this is Bush's fault, how exactly?

 

[Tehon]

The Commander on the battlefield at the time of the decision to leave is responsible................PERIOD.................
Not the one who no longer is in charge...........

All the deflection in the world will not change that....................

And still nothing from you about the Commander's decision to willfully manipulate the citizens of this country. The subject of the OP.

 

[Jantje_Smit]

In Libya we had no strategy for succession after Ghaddafi. How'd that work out?

Pretty well, the moderate jihadis are in charge now

They are waging a civil war now to decide who is the most moderate but that will only take a decade or so.

 

[The Rabbi]

How many votes did we (America) cast? And how, given how we're so hated by Iraqis, did we convince them to vote for a specific candidate?

At great expense to this nation we toppled the leader of Iraq and now you are going to argue that we just left the future of Iraq to chance. That would make either you or Bush an idiot depending on one's beliefs. I'm betting on it being you.

Iraq folded under Obama's watch............................not Bush's.....................

Iraq was abandoned......as per the plan already set in motion.

In wars, plans are subject to change..................all plans depend on the situation on the ground at the time of departure.....................

If the intel is that it would leave a vacuum in INTEL and cause the place to be overrun............then the acting CNC of that time should make the decision based on CURRENT EVENTS and not something that was stated years before.......................

The CURRENT CNC made that call, not the previous.......................To say it's the other guys fault is utter Horse Hockey.................the new man in charge is in CHARGE, not the old one................and is RESPONSIBLE for his decisions........................

It is an excuse for the continued policy blunders under OBAMA.................not Bush....................

BUT BUSH..............BUT BUSH....................BUT BUSH.......................

I don't make excuses for Obama, I thought that would be clear by now. And I'm not placing all the blame on the other guy either. But I'm not going to deny how all this got started which many Americans don't seem willing to admit. That the American people were manipulated willfully by the President and his administration into a war that was not necessary.

And for your information the decision to allow a vacuum in Iraq and create a space for Sunni insurgents to fill was implemented under Bush. Obama's failure was in not ending the policy. It's a long read but informative.
The Redirection - The New Yorker

So you're not going to blame Bush and then you blame Bush.
All of this started when Saddam invaded Kuwait, the US mounted a force to remove him, and he remained in power because Democrats would not authorize further action.
Saddam continued to defy and undermine sanctions and violated the no-fly zone. He was also a 20year state supporter of terrorism.
George W Bush inherited information which every Democrat also believed, that Saddam had a program of WMD, which in fact ws true. Based on that and in the aftermath of 9/11 Bush tried negotiating with Saddam and the UN and was treated to lies, deception, and obfuscation. After considerable time and effort no other route was open but war, Saddam having defied every ultimatum and UN resolution.
The US ousted Saddam, killing his sons in the process, in a war that was won quickly and with relatively little loss of American life. The war morphed into a guerilla war, whcih the Democrats declared was unwinnable. Bush courageously staged the surge which succeeded in mopping up the guerillas, staged two free and fair elections, and left Iraq a stable democracy.
Obama inherited that success story and cut and run to fulfill promises to the Left about "bringing the troops home." He was advised by all his military staff that sucha move would leave a dangerous power vacuum in the region that Iran would attempt to fill.
That is pretty much what happened.
Bush=win
Obama=lose.

 

[The Rabbi]

In Libya we had no strategy for succession after Ghaddafi. How'd that work out?

Pretty well, the moderate jihadis are in charge now

They are waging a civil war now to decide who is the most moderate but that will only take a decade or so.

Libya is a failed state that harbors terrorists.
Now go fuck yourself.

 

[Tehon]

So we left a stable Iraq

And you think I'm clowning.

 

[The Rabbi]

So we left a stable Iraq

And you think I'm clowning.

Two free and fair elections, a power sharing agreement among all parties. Yeah, that's what it was. Quit pretending.

 

[eagle1462010]

The Commander on the battlefield at the time of the decision to leave is responsible................PERIOD.................
Not the one who no longer is in charge...........

All the deflection in the world will not change that....................

And still nothing from you about the Commander's decision to willfully manipulate the citizens of this country. The subject of the OP.

As you dodge the decision of the current CNC to leave Cold Turkey and then blame someone else for that decision..................

 

[Rustic]

My favorite part is "success against Saddam will yield more regional success"

Have to wonder what they meant by this, and in hindsight you have to wonder if they got the success they were looking for or not.

The other part I like is "[Blair will] demonstrate that we have thought through "the day after""

I mean, seriously, they just didn't, did they? No thinking was going on there at all.

What is stupid, no matter who is or isn't in the Mideast, "stabilizing" or "unstabilizing".
MUSLIMS WILL NEVER GET ALONG WITH EACH OTHER LET ALONE ANYONE ELSE!!!!!
It is not in their nature nor their DNA... There is thousands of years of proof of this...

Embrace the suck

 

[Tehon]

The Commander on the battlefield at the time of the decision to leave is responsible................PERIOD.................
Not the one who no longer is in charge...........

All the deflection in the world will not change that....................

And still nothing from you about the Commander's decision to willfully manipulate the citizens of this country. The subject of the OP.

As you dodge the decision of the current CNC to leave Cold Turkey and then blame someone else for that decision..................

I'm pretty sure I already stated in this thread that Obama's decision to continue neocon strategy was a failure. In fact I am on these boards almost daily talking about the failures of our current foreign policies.