Post by Kreeper X on Dec 3, 2005 13:36:05 GMT -5
bulldog said:
Iraqis may have met with Bin Laden. You don't think Americans met with him back when he was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan? We armed him, just like we armed Saddam. While we did support Iraq in it's war with radical Iran, to proclaim that we armed him is a bit of a stretch. If we armed him, why is it that over the last 13 years that we've been fighting with this yahoo if been a fight against Russian and French weaponry?
Nobody's disputing that Al Quedda is operating in Iraq now - but before America turned from Afghanistan to Iraq, Bin Laden was calling for the people of Iraq to rise up and overthrow Saddam's secular government.
We also know that Iraq has openly supported terrorism in one form or another and that at least two full-blown Al Qaeda training camps have existed in Iraq. There was also the "Hijacking" facility, complete with Jumbo Jet in Iraq.
We know that Saddam offered asylum to Zarquewa <sp> after he was wounded in Afghanistan and that Saddam had set up funding for terror activities in Iraq in the build-up to invasion.
We've also had "contact" with every premier of the Soviet Union, as well as the leaders of China, North Korea, and Iran. If having contact with the (now) enemy- nevermind supporting their evil behavior- is basis for invasion and overthrowing the government, I present exhibit A:
Now that's cute. If you want to talk about supporting via supplies, money, grain, etc a regime that was at the time an ENEMY of the United States, You need go no further than the Democratic National Party.
The DNC EMBRACED the Soviet Union in MANY ways... SO I guess that we should have FDR (who often called Stalin "Uncle Joe" even as Stalin was jailing MILLIONS of innocent Russians in Prisons in Siberia and murdering MILLIONS others who didn't support him) and everyone in his administration who actually have been proven to be Soviet Agents (alger Hiss, etc) as well as everyone associated with his adminstration that was "of questionable patriotism" collectively declared to be traitors.
Maybe the French will come liberate us (again).
I doubt it. They don't have the balls to fight the muslim rioters who are burning the country to the ground, let alone fight any sort of actual war.
Presidents through Reagan created and propped up Saddam and other dictators (The Shaw of Iran, Pinochet, the Saud family, Marcos, Batista, Noriega, Musharraf...) because they were/are not radically Muslim and/or Communists. Their iron and undemocratic rule stabilized their countries and prevented civil war.
I'd actaully agree with this premise and challenge you to show me how it's wrong. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. In the face of Soviet expansionnism (which most lefties were perfectly fine with, I might add) we lended support to ANYONE who would could stand up to the Soviets. We supported the Shaw because we needed to keep the Soviets out of the middle east. Carter ended up turning his back on the Shaw and the result is what is now a nation of Iran that is actively seeking Nuclear Weapons and patently anti-American. Once teh Shaw fell, we backed Saddam because, simply put, he was the enemy of our new enemy in the middle east.
In Afghanistan, we had the soviets trying to roll in and people in desperate need of help. We offered it, but our mistake there was to just abandon them after the soviets fled. Had we stuck with the leadership of Afghanistan instead of patting them on the back and saying "Great job! Bye!" the state might have held together longer and not fallen into the hands of the Taliban.
What is the problem with supporting any Anti-Communist regime or country in the face of an expanding soviet empire that was slowly swallowing more and more of the world and making more and more threats against the US and our allies?
The point is that you have to support those who are in the game against your oponent. Right or wrong, it was spport from the Saudis that helped to bankrupt the soviet union.
We knew Saddam, like the rest, used torture, illegal weapons, and mass-murder to keep their countries under control, but as long as he was keeping Iran busy (since that Shaw thing didn't work out for us) we didn't care. Then the Soviets collapsed, and Bush Sr. needed a new Bad Guy. So we set out to top Saddam's record for human rights abuses in Iraq.
Objection! The Shaw was abandoned by Jimmy Carter and allowed to fall because Jimmy Carter didn't have the balls to stand up to the Soviet Union. Let's not forget that the riots and the "revolution" that the Shaw fled was, at it's heart, backed by the soviet union and that it wasn't until the Aihatola <sp> took power that the Soviet influence was ejected from Iran and Radical Islamic rule took root.
Once the soviets fell, our common enemy was gone and we didn turn our attention to those who we had supported but now had no reason to support. How is that a bad thing. I contend that standing by and doing nothing like the peace-niks and lefties would have had us do after the soviets fell would have been turning our backs on our very ideals. Yes we supported regimes that were shady or down-right evil, but we did so because the Soviet Union had to fall for our own protection.
But to advocate that once that common enemy is gone, that we should leave those shady and evil regimes alone to continue to murder people is crazy.
As for the UNICEF records, it's funny that you post the 130,000 number as those dead under the Saddam regime. We now know that that number is eclipsed by the warehouses of dead bodies and the mass graves we've unearthed since being there in 2002.
There were no weapons of mass destruction by 2002. We know Iraq had them at some point, because they bought them from us, but that was the '80s. The UN inspections were mostly working, and the massing of US troops in the area motivated Saddam to make SURE there was nothing to find; memos found after the invasion warned Iraqi field commanders that they would be held personally responsible for any undestroyed proscribed ordinance.
* - 1.77 Metric Tons of Enrished Uranium.
* - Various Parts needed for the Enrichment of Uranium (with no "duel purposes")
* - The scientists involved in a Nuclear Weapons program.
* - Sarin Gas Shells that have since been used by terrorists in IEDs and Car Bombs in Iraq.
* - 1,500 Gallons of Chemical Weapons Agents
* - Chemical warheads containing cyclosarin
* - Over 1,000 radioactive materials in powdered form (I.e. meant for dispersal over populated areas)
* - UAVs that could deliver such agents.
* - Missiles that violated the UN sanctions found in Iraq
* - Threats from the Saddam Regime in BOTH Gulf Wars to use WMDs against Allied Forces
* - Refusale by the Iraqis to a) publicly disarm, b) allow unfettered access for the inspectors, c) allow those scientists involved in the WMD programs to be interviewed OUTSIDE the country.
* - The FACT that the inspectors had been kicked out of the country several times.
Should I keep going?
If there had been any WMDs left, buried deeply and secretly in the desert, what was it there for? If the field commanders had any stashes, or Hussain had stockpiles, why didn't they use them to save themselves?
Simple. Use of said weapons would be proof of thier existance and would ahve resulted in a massive shift in world opinion in regards to either war. If Saddam had used such weapons in the First Gulf War, Russia would not have been able to "press" Bush to stop the war and Saddam would have been dead or in jail 13 years ago.
Same here. There is a vested interest in these weapons not being found. The fact that we HAVE found some of the stuff that Iraq said it didn't have is very telling. What else is there? If they lied about not having these items, then what else have they lied about?
Why haven't the Sunni insurgents dug any of it up to supplement their IEDs? Oh that's right, the Iraqi's are willing to give up their lives and their country as part of a grand conspiracy to make George Bush look like either an idiot or a liar.
Actually they have. Several Sarin Gas shells have been used in IEDs and Car Bombs.
Are the soldiers in Iraq so thin-skinned that we can't criticize our government? I think not. Since the government has kept us almost constantly at war since 1776, that doesn't leave a lot of room for free speech.
What a load of crap. Constantly in war since 1776? Yeah, we've had some wars... But the time spent in active war as compared to the time spent in peace isn't even comparable.
One quote: "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana