The Bush Administration Was "ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN" That Saddam Hussein Had WMDs

[Jarhead]

On the off chance that you're being serious, I'll be happy to answer.

1. Bush lobbied Congress.
2. Congress gave Bush the authority. Not a requirement, the authority.
3. Bush acted on the authority given to him by Congress, which he had lobbied.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. And that's why the buck stops with him.

I'm sure you agree.

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Oh...you opted to play word games. I dont play word games when I debate. I find it childish and non productive.

I said "Bush addressed congress"...you said, (paraphrased) 'wrong, he lobbied congress'
I said "congress gave Bush the authority to enter Iraq with military intent"....you said (paraphrased) 'wrong, Congress gave Bush authority to enter Iraq with military intent'

You see Mac...those are childish word games.

I do not wish to play.

Word games, indeed. Parsing to avoid the point.

So you're going to pretend that Bush didn't lobby Congress. You're going to pretend that Congress somehow forced Bush to go to war.

Okay. None of this is exactly a surprise. You win. This is silly.

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huh?

Where di i say congress forced Bush?

What the hell are you talking about?

Why are you making a very straightforward debate so complicated with childish inuendos?

Bottom line is this....Bush had intel that gave him reason to want to ask. As he should, he met with congress and asked for their "opinion"....based on the same intel. Congress agreed that the intel warranted them authorizing him to go into Iraq.

He did it the right way. He did not unilaterally decide based on his own assumptions...he asked congress for their opinion as well.,...

Unlike our present CIC....who asks congress...and when they say "bad idea", he signs an EO order anyway.

But thats for another thread.

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

Anyone who supported this horror has fingerprints on it, so you can give up on that one.

Do you agree with me that the Commander in Chief is where the buck has to stop?.

You just conveniently changed your tune.
Had you been posting the culpability of both dems and repubs (and not whining that others are trying to shift the blame to the dems) I would have had no reason to respond to you at all. To the extent that there is blame to be apportioned for the Iraq war - and I don't subscribe to that notion - we now seem to agree it would fall on members of both parties.

And the final responsibility? Who made the final call?

Go ahead, you can answer. Everyone knows.

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I still don't see a case that Saddam Hussein didn't try to smuggle out WMDs. The intelligence and reports later confirmed that he had, which explains his avoidance and toying with UN weapons inspectors, and later throwing them out of the country before they finished their job. President Bush made the right call to try and prevent Iraq from building up such stockpile of weapons. Had certain members of the United Nations not been profiting from the Oil for Food program against Iraq, we may have had more support from other nations. There is nothing to show or say, that with all the intelligence uncovered then and later proven, that things would have been better as they were. Saddam broke the agreement under these sanctions with the United Nations, and the UN failed to deal with or enforce its part of the problem.

This concludes the problem with going to the United Nations to resolve violations and enforce its resolutions. They failed when they were known as the League of Nations as well, after World War I, to prevent Germany from rebuilding its arsenal and military to become a viable threat once again. As a result of the League of Nations' failures we had to contend with World War II and losing millions of more lives. History repeats if no one is there to enforce.

 

[Oldstyle]

On the off chance that you're being serious, I'll be happy to answer.

1. Bush lobbied Congress.
2. Congress gave Bush the authority. Not a requirement, the authority.
3. Bush acted on the authority given to him by Congress, which he had lobbied.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. And that's why the buck stops with him.

I'm sure you agree.

.

Oh...you opted to play word games. I dont play word games when I debate. I find it childish and non productive.

I said "Bush addressed congress"...you said, (paraphrased) 'wrong, he lobbied congress'
I said "congress gave Bush the authority to enter Iraq with military intent"....you said (paraphrased) 'wrong, Congress gave Bush authority to enter Iraq with military intent'

You see Mac...those are childish word games.

I do not wish to play.

Word games, indeed. Parsing to avoid the point.

So you're going to pretend that Bush didn't lobby Congress. You're going to pretend that Congress somehow forced Bush to go to war.

Okay. None of this is exactly a surprise. You win. This is silly.

.

So let me see if I understand how this works...

If Bush lobbies Congress for something and they give it to him then Congress is blameless and it's all Bush's fault?

I get endless amusement out of the way progressives contort logic in order to blame Bush. According to them he's the biggest idiot ever to sit in the Oval Office...but at the same time he's a mastermind of politics and Democrats are powerless to resist his clarion calls for legislation! Do you people even care how silly you look when you post some of the nonsense that you do?

 

[Mac1958]

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Either the buck stops with Bush, or it does not. Clearly, for some, it does not.

So much for personal responsibility, huh?

If Clinton had put us there, the conservatives would be screaming the the mountaintops, understandably.

.

 

[Oldstyle]

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Either the buck stops with Bush, or it does not. Clearly, for some, it does not.

So much for personal responsibility, huh?

If Clinton had put us there, the conservatives would be screaming the the mountaintops, understandably.

.

Gotta be honest with you, Mac...that comment coming from a supporter of Barack Obama...a President who is the polar opposite of Harry Truman when it comes to where the "buck stops"...is laughable. Not only has the "buck" never stopped on Barry's desk..."small change" doesn't stop there either. You've got a progressive President who points fingers at EVERYONE other than himself for any shortcomings but LEAPS at the chance to claim credit for things that he had little to nothing to do with.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

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Either the buck stops with Bush, or it does not. Clearly, for some, it does not.

So much for personal responsibility, huh?

If Clinton had put us there, the conservatives would be screaming the the mountaintops, understandably.

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Either you are a hack OR you are a hack. Understandable.
Yes, it is quite understandable how and why you'd want to deny the responsibility that is shared by Democrats for Iraq.


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[Fang]

​

Well when you can't defend Obama go back to attacking Bush.

Ain't that the truth. Of course they conveniently forget about all the Democrats that voted for the war.

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

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Either the buck stops with Bush, or it does not. Clearly, for some, it does not.

So much for personal responsibility, huh?

If Clinton had put us there, the conservatives would be screaming the the mountaintops, understandably.

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You are still living in this fantasy world that things would have been better off if someone didn't do their job of enforcement. The United Nations didn't care to do their job. Seems someone ELSE refused to take on some "personal responsibility", so that others wouldn't feel so obligated .... and no discussion over what BUSH did would then become necessary. Go ahead talk some more about accepting personal responsibility, this thread is starting to drag out about as long as the United Nations refusal to do their job .... despite repeated attempts to get them involved.

 

[Mac1958]

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Either the buck stops with Bush, or it does not. Clearly, for some, it does not.

So much for personal responsibility, huh?

If Clinton had put us there, the conservatives would be screaming the the mountaintops, understandably.

.

Gotta be honest with you, Mac...that comment coming from a supporter of Barack Obama...a President who is the polar opposite of Harry Truman when it comes to where the "buck stops"...is laughable. Not only has the "buck" never stopped on Barry's desk..."small change" doesn't stop there either. You've got a progressive President who points fingers at EVERYONE other than himself for any shortcomings but LEAPS at the chance to claim credit for things that he had little to nothing to do with.

Oops, sorry, I'm no supporter of Obama.

Why do so many people make simplistic assumptions like that? Either/or, black/white, us. vs. them. Some of us -- I would say a majority of us -- choose to think for ourselves. I'd say there are more of me than there are of you.

.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

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Either the buck stops with Bush, or it does not. Clearly, for some, it does not.

So much for personal responsibility, huh?

If Clinton had put us there, the conservatives would be screaming the the mountaintops, understandably.

.

Gotta be honest with you, Mac...that comment coming from a supporter of Barack Obama...a President who is the polar opposite of Harry Truman when it comes to where the "buck stops"...is laughable. Not only has the "buck" never stopped on Barry's desk..."small change" doesn't stop there either. You've got a progressive President who points fingers at EVERYONE other than himself for any shortcomings but LEAPS at the chance to claim credit for things that he had little to nothing to do with.

Oops, sorry, I'm no supporter of Obama.

Why do so many people make simplistic assumptions like that? Either/or, black/white, us. vs. them. Some of us -- I would say a majority of us -- choose to think for ourselves. I'd say there are more of me than there are of you.

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If by "you" you mean phonies, then yeah. There are a ton of you hacks around.

;

 

[Oldstyle]

Funny how many self proclaimed "independent thinkers" there are on this board that bristle at the very notion that they are liberals yet spend most of their time attacking conservatives and defending liberals.

I guess they've realized that when the word liberal became synonymous with pie in the sky governence and the follow up to that..."progressive" began to take on the same negative connotation...that it was once again time to "relabel the brand".

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Funny how many self proclaimed "independent thinkers" there are on this board that bristle at the very notion that they are liberals yet spend most of their time attacking conservatives and defending liberals.

I guess they've realized that when the word liberal became synonymous with pie in the sky governence and the follow up to that..."progressive" began to take on the same negative connotation...that it was once again time to "relabel the brand".

It is funny as all hell to see a liberal object to being called a "liberal" but demanding to be called a "progressive" as though the terms had any meaningful distinction between them.

 

[Britfire54]

Anyone who supported this horror has fingerprints on it, so you can give up on that one.

Do you agree with me that the Commander in Chief is where the buck has to stop?.

You just conveniently changed your tune.
Had you been posting the culpability of both dems and repubs (and not whining that others are trying to shift the blame to the dems) I would have had no reason to respond to you at all. To the extent that there is blame to be apportioned for the Iraq war - and I don't subscribe to that notion - we now seem to agree it would fall on members of both parties.

And the final responsibility? Who made the final call?

Go ahead, you can answer. Everyone knows.

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I suggest this.

Who made the final call ? Seems obvious to me. GW Bush did.

Who held the final responsibility for the necessity of invasion ? Easy. SADDAM DID.

Saddam had ample time and opportunity to FULLY comply with UN Resolution 1441, to say nothing of Resolutions passed before that one. But, Saddam always refused to fully comply.

There could ultimately be only one outcome from the consequences of such unreasonable (even 'baffling', IF there were no WMD's .. and we know that there were !!) intransigence. And GW Bush followed through, undertaking the only reasonable course of action which remained.

The rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Britfire54]

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Either the buck stops with Bush, or it does not. Clearly, for some, it does not.

So much for personal responsibility, huh?

If Clinton had put us there, the conservatives would be screaming the the mountaintops, understandably.

.

You are still living in this fantasy world that things would have been better off if someone didn't do their job of enforcement. The United Nations didn't care to do their job. Seems someone ELSE refused to take on some "personal responsibility", so that others wouldn't feel so obligated .... and no discussion over what BUSH did would then become necessary. Go ahead talk some more about accepting personal responsibility, this thread is starting to drag out about as long as the United Nations refusal to do their job .... despite repeated attempts to get them involved.

For what it's worth, I don't think that saying the UN 'didn't care to do their job' reflects the reality.

I think the reality was (and will be, in any future equivalents the world might yet see) that the UN is totally incapable of being up to such a job.

There will be times when strong, decisive military action will be the only realistic answer to rogue regimes, powers, whatever. The UN just doesn't have the necessary teeth to follow through.

Happily for the world, GW Bush had that capacity to inflict the necessary 'bite'. The result - even though people disagree as to the detail - is that the WMD situation actually, meaningfully, WAS neutralised in Iraq. Resolution of the issue was achieved.

 

[Jarhead]

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Either the buck stops with Bush, or it does not. Clearly, for some, it does not.

So much for personal responsibility, huh?

If Clinton had put us there, the conservatives would be screaming the the mountaintops, understandably.

.

You are still living in this fantasy world that things would have been better off if someone didn't do their job of enforcement. The United Nations didn't care to do their job. Seems someone ELSE refused to take on some "personal responsibility", so that others wouldn't feel so obligated .... and no discussion over what BUSH did would then become necessary. Go ahead talk some more about accepting personal responsibility, this thread is starting to drag out about as long as the United Nations refusal to do their job .... despite repeated attempts to get them involved.

For what it's worth, I don't think that saying the UN 'didn't care to do their job' reflects the reality.

I think the reality was (and will be, in any future equivalents the world might yet see) that the UN is totally incapable of being up to such a job.

There will be times when strong, decisive military action will be the only realistic answer to rogue regimes, powers, whatever. The UN just doesn't have the necessary teeth to follow through.

Happily for the world, GW Bush had that capacity to inflict the necessary 'bite'. The result - even though people disagree as to the detail - is that the WMD situation actually, meaningfully, WAS neutralised in Iraq. Resolution of the issue was achieved.

Exactly.

 

[Jarhead]

You just conveniently changed your tune.
Had you been posting the culpability of both dems and repubs (and not whining that others are trying to shift the blame to the dems) I would have had no reason to respond to you at all. To the extent that there is blame to be apportioned for the Iraq war - and I don't subscribe to that notion - we now seem to agree it would fall on members of both parties.

And the final responsibility? Who made the final call?

Go ahead, you can answer. Everyone knows.

.

I suggest this.

Who made the final call ? Seems obvious to me. GW Bush did.

Who held the final responsibility for the necessity of invasion ? Easy. SADDAM DID.

Saddam had ample time and opportunity to FULLY comply with UN Resolution 1441, to say nothing of Resolutions passed before that one. But, Saddam always refused to fully comply.

There could ultimately be only one outcome from the consequences of such unreasonable (even 'baffling', IF there were no WMD's .. and we know that there were !!) intransigence. And GW Bush followed through, undertaking the only reasonable course of action which remained.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Bush did what true leaders do.....without concern of what is popular.

Bush was a great leader......and history will show this to be true.

 

[Mac1958]

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Yep, Saddam is gone. At a cost of:

• Thousands of young Americans dead
• Thousands of young Americans physically maimed
• Thousands of young Americans psychologically maimed
• Thousands of young American children orphaned
• Thousands of young American families destroyed
• Trillions of dollars borrowed and spent
• Iran's lone mitigating military and its leader destroyed, opening the door for their shenanigans

Let's at least respect those who have suffered and who continue to suffer by telling the whole story.

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[IlarMeilyr]

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Yep, Saddam is gone. At a cost of:

• Thousands of young Americans dead
• Thousands of young Americans physically maimed
• Thousands of young Americans psychologically maimed
• Thousands of young American children orphaned
• Thousands of young American families destroyed
• Trillions of dollars borrowed and spent
• Iran's lone mitigating military and its leader destroyed, opening the door for their shenanigans

Let's at least respect those who have suffered and who continue to suffer by telling the whole story.

.

You don't know the whole story. You just mention enough of the familiarly tragic aspects of all war so as to sound like you are shrouded with sanctity.

Th whole story is the hundreds of thousands of Saddam's victims who are not being subjected to his "rape rooms" or being thrown, bound and blindfolded, off of rooftops -- and who are not being fed, feet first, into plastic shredders and who are not getting gassed by Saddam for the sin of having been born a Kurd.

And Saddam is not invading neighboring lands.

And the WMDs which we KNOW he had are not being covertly provided to the likes of al qaeda which is precisely what had been feared he could do. And gee, why wouldn't a murdering scumbag with WMDs who viewed us as his enemy have sided with others who view us as their enemy?

There's of of "sides" to "the story" that chumps like you refuse to give ANY thought to.


;

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:

 

[jtpr312]

The notion that radical fundamentalists are "criminals" and not engaged in a war against the West is vague concept that progressives like yourself seem determined to cling to despite evidence to the contrary. We're presently witnessing the coalescence of radical fundamentalists throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Taliban are taking political power. They are not criminal organizations...they are radical Islamic fundamentalists who seek to impose their views on the rest of the world by force.

I don't see how you can make that conclusion, we're the only ones invading sovereign nations.

In the last 10 years, name one country that has attacked another one, other than us.

As for innocents being killed in wars? Thousands of French civilians were killed in the bombing that preceded and followed D-Day. Does that mean that the Allies were "war criminals" for invading Europe? Were innocent people killed by us in Afghanistan? Yes they were. It's what happens in war. And if you're the leader of a country and you CARE about your people then you do everything you can not to put them into a position like that. You don't let groups like Al Queda set up terrorist training camps in your country because you KNOW that what they are training for is the slaughter of innocents which WILL engender a response from those who are attacked. You want to blame someone for those deaths? Blame the Taliban leadership that looked the other way while Osama bin Laden did his thing!

You seem to want to blame everyone but yourself. Things don't happen in a vacuum. When you deliberately bomb the shit out of some ME country, that itself, creates a hatred towards the US and eventually radicalizes a segment of that population to commit terrorist acts against the United States. So a portion of our foreign policy is creating terrorists and making American's less safe.

Eritrea attacked Djibouti, 2008
Thailand into Cambodia, 2008
South Sudan into Sudan 2012

 

[Mac1958]

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Yep, Saddam is gone. At a cost of:

• Thousands of young Americans dead
• Thousands of young Americans physically maimed
• Thousands of young Americans psychologically maimed
• Thousands of young American children orphaned
• Thousands of young American families destroyed
• Trillions of dollars borrowed and spent
• Iran's lone mitigating military and its leader destroyed, opening the door for their shenanigans

Let's at least respect those who have suffered and who continue to suffer by telling the whole story.

.

You don't know the whole story. You just mention enough of the familiarly tragic aspects of all war so as to sound like you are shrouded with sanctity.

Th whole story is the hundreds of thousands of Saddam's victims who are not being subjected to his "rape rooms" or being thrown, bound and blindfolded, off of rooftops -- and who are not being fed, feet first, into plastic shredders and who are not getting gassed by Saddam for the sin of having been born a Kurd.

And Saddam is not invading neighboring lands.

And the WMDs which we KNOW he had are not being covertly provided to the likes of al qaeda which is precisely what had been feared he could do. And gee, why wouldn't a murdering scumbag with WMDs who viewed us as his enemy have sided with others who view us as their enemy?

There's of of "sides" to "the story" that chumps like you refuse to give ANY thought to.


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Wow, great job of diverting away from that list! It's like it never even happened! And then you made it about ME! You're good!

And I'll bet you "care about the troops" too, right!



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