How about some debate? Iraq

[jrod]

One of the things I missed about the old forum was the great political debates. Though opinions varied, forum members were generally well informed, and respectful of each other.

In the spirit of the A5OG, I'll start with this:

What should we do in Iraq?

My vote is to stay and finish the job. Those that believe Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror are sadly misinformed.

Remember, keep this discussion civil. No flaming. I want this to be a free and open exchange of ideas.

[bulldog]

I should probably keep my head down so you all can forget what a militant pacifist I am, but I can never seem to resist...

Those that believe Iraq has anything to do with the war on terror must live in Israel.

One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.

[jrod]

Bulldog,

Nothing wrong with being a pacifist. I think all good people yearn for peace. But that peace comes with a price. I'm curious about the quote posted. What's the source?

[Vashthestampede]

bulldog said:

t a militant pacifist

Isn't that an oxymoron?

[LilBigMan]

Everyone in my school hates our reading teacher, and we always give him a hard time. Today he told us were all stupid and thats why there giving us guns and sending us over seas to die in wars... dont think thats the best thing to say to your students

[squirrel]

Actually the 9/11 commision determined that there were contacts between Al Qaeda and Saddam. Just not Operational contacts for the 9/11 attack.

Actually as a conservative I do have some problems with the policy of attacking countries before they can pose a imminent threat to the US or before they have attacked the US. I think it is a policy that needs serious debate.

Does that mean that I think the Iraq war was wrong? No in fact I think that in the long run it will be seen as a brilliant strategy. Right now the terrorists are focused on Iraq and doing everything that they can to destroy the new democracy that is there. The terrorists need a dissatisfied population from which to draw their "soldiers". The middle east has been a perfect recruiting ground for them because so much of the population lives is abject poverty. We have all seen the opluent splendor that the rulers of the middle east live in, but the is not the norm for most people living there.

A democratic free society provides the best way for people to improve the living situation. It creates wealth and peace. Having Iraq as a peaceful prosperous nation will show the people in the region that it is not the west in general and the US in particular that is depriving them of the standard of living that they want, it is their represive totalitarian governments. I think once the people of the region see the success that Iraq will become, democracy will spread. As democracy spreads the disontent that lead many to embrace terrorists and their ideas will die. This does not mean that the Terrorists will be gone, there will always be the wacko idealogues that will attempt to overthrow the system. But their threat will be greatly diminished.

[bulldog]

jrod said:

What's the source?

The quote is linked to the source page, which is on the National Journal site.

Here are some more links in the same vein. I'd very interrested in seeing some links to the mentioned 9/11 commisions findings.

"Militant Pacifist" is meant to be an oxymoron; sometimes I use "rabid," "raging" or "violently" instead of "militant."

I'm not really anti-violence or anti-war, just extremely anti-STUPID-SOLDIER-WASTING-ENEMY-MAKING-war. For example, despite my age and a bad ankle I considered enlisting for Afganistan, but when we invaded Iraq I picked up the paperwork to renew my passport and checked out Canadian emigration.

[squirrel]

There's also the testimony the Commission heard Wednesday from Patrick Fitzgerald. The former Manhattan prosecutor was asked about his 1998 indictment against Osama bin Laden that asserted that al Qaeda had an "understanding" with Iraq that it would not "work against that government" and that "on certain projects, specifically including weapons development," they would "work cooperatively." Mr. Fitzgerald testified that "there was that relationship that went from opposing each other to not opposing each other to possibly working with each other."

Somehow the Commission also omitted any reference to Mr. Tenet's 2002 letter to Congress. "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade," he wrote. And, "We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda's leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire W.M.D. capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs."

www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005237

plus this from a Rich Lowry article

Top Clinton administration counterterrorism official Richard Clarke’s assertions, based on intelligence reports in 1999, that Saddam had offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings, and Clarke’s memo to then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, advising him not to fly U-2 missions against bin Laden in Afghanistan because he might be tipped off by Pakistani Intelligence, and “rmed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad”? (See 9/11 Commission Final Report, p. 134 & n.135.)

Here is a link to a USA today editorial discusing some more of the staff reports for the 9/11 commission

www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-06-17-hadley_x.htm

from the editorial:
Chairman Thomas Kean has confirmed: "There were contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda, a number of them, some of them a little shadowy. They were definitely there."

[squirrel]

Plus I think the evidence the commission used to throw out the Czech intelligence's claim that Atta met with a top Iraqi intelligence official is incredibly weak. They used the fact that calls were made on Atta's cell phone as evidence that he was in the US when he was supposed to be meeting with the Iraqi official. I am not saying they were wrong, but I am not saying they were right either.

[a5xrunner]

I really think that we need to stay there and fight, but a new strategy needs to be thought up, unlike my parents who thinks we should pull out right away. Its way to late to pull out now because then well just make more enemies, thus making more terroists.

[Snake Eyes 88 USMC]

I vote Sea of Glass and thought that at the very outcome of 9/11.
My thoughts...
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iranistan, Iraqistan all of them including Isrealistan Turned into one Magnificint outstretching Mirror that Astronouts can see themselves in from space.
Take the Oil and grind any objectioning country to a halt by cutting off thier Petrol supplies.
Whatever happened to belief in Manifest Destiny?
We finish the "Middle East Debate".
We own the Oil.
We rule the World.

[Kreeper X]

Okay. Here's my Iraq arguement in a nut shell.

Clinton Flew into Bosnia to get the "power mad, homicidal" dictator Slobodan Milošević on the grounds that he was a War Criminal participating in the mass slaughter of innocent Muslims. Turns out that the UN didn't back that move and in the end, it turns out that the "Mass graves" and "Ethnic Cleansing" that Clinton aimed to stop never really even existed in the first place.

Fast Farward to 2001. September 11th. The world changes.

The president is recieving, on a daily basis, reports of the Iraqi Regime thumbing it's nose at the UN and US threats to come clean about his weapons programs. The president is recieving intellegence from around the world pointing to the assumed FACT that Saddam had,has and is developing Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The President offers one last chance to come clean. They send Colin Powell to the UN to present the case of what the intellegence pointed to all along. The UN Votes to back a resolution demanding Iraq disarm immediately and disclose all it's weapons programs.

Facing a choice of continuing in the vien of the last 12 years of "Mr. Hussein, Please disarm or we'll be really really upset and write you a friendly letter asking you ro disarm again" or take action to prevent a tyranical regime that actaully is filling mass graves with muslims from passing on the WMDs that it's thought to have to it's terrorist allies. Saddam set up one training field for terrorists and supplied it with a full sized jumbo jet so that "proper hijacking techniques" could be practiced. Two Al Queda training camps were being run in Northern Iraq, and KNOWN AL Queda terrorists have been KNOWN to have fled the battle field in Afghanistan (Read Al Zarquea or whatever his name is)...

Bush decides not to take the chance. A last chance offer was presented to Iraq and the US Congress votes OVERWHELMINGLY to support action against Iraq. Saddam believes that it's all "bluster" and that the UN, thanks to it's bribes to France and Russia and China, won't allow such action to take place.

In a post 9/11 world, where there are MOUNTAINS of intellegence information that a threat is REAL, and in the face of 12 years of Iraqi violation of the original Gulf War cease-fire agreement, Bush pulls the trigger on a resumption of hostilities and effectively makes the front line of the War on Terror the Iraqi State.

I'd ahve done it. Most of you would have done it, regardless of all the "flip/flopping" of the lefties out there who DEMANDED an additional vote on the Iraq War resolution so that they could VOTE IN FAVOR OF THE WAR...

So to any lefties out there can I get a straight yes or no answer to the following questions?

1. Are the Iraqi people better off with Saddam in Jail and the mass graves and torture chambers and rape rooms that Saddam operated being shut down for good?

2. Would you rather fight with the terrorists in the middle east or in the streets of New York City?

3. Would you act on a potential threat and save potentially MILLIONS of innocent lives, or would you wait until a Nuke or a chemical weapon goes off in San Diego or New York City?

Most lefties I know will never answer those questions because the answers are obvious and they all point to pulling the trigger.

Oh, and that doesn't take into account the FINDING of 1.77 Metric tons of Enriched Uranium in Iraq. Nor does it take into account the fact that we HAVE the scientists who were working on his nuclear programs. Oh, and don't forget the Sarin Gas shells that have been used in IEDs against our convoys.

Stay and get the job done right and then tell Syria to get it's act together and tell Iran that it's time to back down... Same for North Korea.

[Ety]

I am not for the war. But I think we have to stay there until the Iraqi's can handle it, if we don't I think its just going to cause more problems.

[Millslane]

Kreeper, thats the "nut shell" version?

i agree that we absoutly must stay as this point. I have backed up Bush 100% through all this.
I watched operation "shock and awe" like it was the 4th of July.

Kreeper, i agree with you completly,

however, at this point, with the enemy hiding more than ever and the death toll of our troops slowly rising, i wish we could make a into a glass lake.

better yet, pave it. one big parking lot, and we can send any taxi drivers who uproar back to drive on, what was their counrty.

all kidding aside, we have to stay and finish the fight, we have to stay strong, and the more we show out support for the tropps, the better their moral will be. how can we further portray out supprt?

if you disagree, thats fine, but keep quite, or just don't be as vocal about it until its over.
if you agree. keep it up.

either way, we will win this war and will not back down for the rest of Bush's term, and i hope the next president will continue

If you look back in history, some of our greatest presidents have very very low approval rating and only time showed just how strong they really were.

[jrod]

Great posts guys. This is what I loved about A5OG.

By the way, did anyone see the pictures of Cindy Sheehan and the book signing? Almost nobody showed up. Yes, it's a tragedy that she lost her son (it's a tragedy that anyone has to lose a child). But he was a soldier and a volunteer.

Keep the dialog going guys. Good job.