For those who think Bush is the problem...read.

Once again we have the people with the mentality that Bush is a war criminal based on Wiki articles and other such sources.

People may not like the facts, but any person that actually reads the UN reports knows without doubt there were clear violations of the cease fire treaties. A thousand Wiki, newspaper, and online articles with other opinions don't change the written facts of those paid to provide an unbiased reporting on that situation.



I don't see why Cheney threatened Blix. After all the man would put one thing in writing and report it to the Security Council, yet give an opposing view to the world press. What credibility was there to harm?

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Originally Posted by Kristjan

The Balts are certainly thankful and consequently contribute more than most (per capita) to American/NATO war efforts.

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Kristjan this argumenting is difficult to understand, like if you help occuping a country because of a feeling you owe something, especially if you look at your own countrys recent history, if anyone your country men should know what means to be occupied.

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Originally Posted by Tomi

Kristjan this argumenting is difficult to understand, like if you help occuping a country because of a feeling you owe something, especially if you look at your own countrys recent history, if anyone your country men should know what means to be occupied.

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You know how the Mafia works, they do you a favor and later demand that you do a favor for them in return.

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Originally Posted by veeten

No, the real reason was a lack of evidence, from the WMD searches to the supposed Al-Qaida connections, but not for a lack of trying from W and the gang to make some kind of excuse, no matter just how flawed it may be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War

In some ways, it reminded me of President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Bay of Tonkin fiasco as a way of escallating US presence in Vietnam, and President Clinton for Somalia & former Yugoslavia.

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Let's slow down here, and take this one step at a time.

My point was that many people, perhaps a majority, think that the Iraq was was in response to 9/11. This is FALSE. Do you dispute that? If so, you'll have to show me the speech where Bush said we were going to Iraq because they perpetrated 9/11.

The search for WMD, or more precicely Saddam's refusal to allow the UN to inspect sites, is a CLEAR violation of the cease fire agreement. THAT is justification enough for a resumption of hostilities steming from the First Gulf War.

No one denies the fact that there were Al-Qaida camps in Iraq at some point. And although they many not have been condoned by Saddam himself, they were still there.

But there were no "excuses" used, only legitimate reasons for going to war. The outcome may not have been what any of us wanted, but it is what it is now. And since we "broke it" we "bought it", and things are starting to stabilize there a bit

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Originally Posted by chuck34

Let's slow down here, and take this one step at a time.
My point was that many people, perhaps a majority, think that the Iraq was was in response to 9/11. This is FALSE.

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Thats true, I was in New York a few years after the occupation, and in the Metro magazine was an article about a poll done about this, and still years after i think it was over 40% did belive that Iraq was behind the terror attack in ny. :)
Now can some of you Americans explaine, how come is it possible?

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

It is never that simple. I thank you for seeing where I am driving at. IN the last year of Obama, I still here people ripping Bush, and Obama, unless you are an American Republican can do no wrong. Well, the world is made up of shades of gray. Some darker and lighter than others. My link to the article at the start of the thread was interviews with people from oppressive regimes who were adament part of the reason they were alive was from Bush's pressure on their regimes and they didn't see the same sort of support from Obama

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I've never really understood Mark why you always seem to fall for PR claptrap. You've dug up a report from what is clearly a political meeting with a parade of people who have supposedly been saved by Bush and don't agree with Obama's policy. An ardent Obama supporter could easily find a similar PR stunt which lo-and-behold shows Obama to be the saviour and the Republicans to be a threat to world peace. Isn't it clear that you're just falling for cheap PR gimmickery? You've done it before too with those healthcare 'articles' of yours.

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Obama is trapped by his ideology and his party's radical left fringe, who he has spent more time listening to than Bill Clinton ever did. A "softer" America is pressupposing of course that Bush was too hard. Well, in many ways, he wasn't. When you are dealing with people who want to use nuclear weapons to finish the job Hitler started, being nice isn't really going to get you too far. When you are dealing with regimes who treat human rights as something they pay lip service to in the press while they confiscate property and throw people in jail for their political beliefs, why should "manners" or being "nice" come into it?

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Firstly in this revisionist sentence you've forgotten one of the most important points, G W Bush was elected on a strongly isolationist platform, as was Clinton before him and Obama after him. Bush did not set out to be a beacon of democracy or whatever label your article wants to stick on him, his initial foreign policy was strongly based on not being involved in international commitments wherever possible, just like Clinton before him and just as Obama promised after him. However just as Clinton had to learn to cope with the outside world after Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Al-Qaeda's earlier attacks, GW Bush was forced into engaging with the outside world after 9/11. Obama doesn't have that luxury of course with Iraq and Afghanistan on his plate from day one of his presidency but to suggest that Bush inherently is more pro-democracy than Obama seems a little far-fetched.

Secondly and as has already been mentioned Bush did not show much backbone against, say, China which I still believe has MFN trading status and has never really faced serious American trading sanctions based on human rights issues (dumping allegations and other trading spats yes, human rights no) under successive presidencies whether blue or red. Neither did Bush's policy towards North Korea differ much from Clinton before him, ie working with China, Russia, South Korea and Japan to engage with them and get a deal giving them effectively free electricity in return for not developing nukes. Obama won't be able to change things much, there isn't much the US can do.

As for Iran Bush never really achieved much there either beyond throwing away one of the best opportunities for detent in his silly axis of evil speech which utterly ignored Iran's central role in helping the US get rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Its a pity he did so since once Iran turned from potential friend to enemy again American troops paid for it with their lives thanks to the plentiful Iranian munitions sent over the border to 'assist' their Shia colleagues in Iraq.

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

In the end, you take Iraq out of the mix, and Bush's foreign policy...

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Never a good idea to take defining bits of policy out of the picture is it? After all in the end once you take the Holocaust and WW2 out of the mix Hitler wasn't that bad was he? I'm not comparing Bush to Hitler but your argument method is extremely flawed don't you think?

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Originally Posted by Tomi

Thats true, I was in New York a few years after the occupation, and in the Metro magazine was an article about a poll done about this, and still years after i think it was over 40% did belive that Iraq was behind the terror attack in ny. :)
Now can some of you Americans explaine, how come is it possible?

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It's possible because the Left in this country has had a bigger bull horn for years to shout their stuff. And many people in the US have other things on their minds than deciding if what they hear is true or not. So they just believe that what is shouted at them the most and the loudest (in this case that Bush is evil, and sooooo stupid that he invaded Iraq in response to 9/11) must be true.

Again, I think that is probably Bush's biggest failing. Not strongly clearing up this FALSE notion.

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Originally Posted by chuck34

Again, I think that is probably Bush's biggest failing. Not strongly clearing up this FALSE notion.

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Don't you think it may have been a deliberate policy not to clarify this false notion, after all it was rather convenient in rallying US public support for the invasion of Iraq wasn't it.

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

Don't you think it may have been a deliberate policy not to clarify this false notion, after all it was rather convenient in rallying US public support for the invasion of Iraq wasn't it.

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I think you're right that they may have thought it was a convenient way to rally support. So they let the idea of an Iraq-9/11 connection float out there on it's own. But they knew it wasn't right, and that is NEVER good policy in the long run. They should have strongly let it be known there were other reasons for dealing with Saddam.

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Originally Posted by chuck34

I think you're right that they may have thought it was a convenient way to rally support. So they let the idea of an Iraq-9/11 connection float out there on it's own. But they knew it wasn't right, and that is NEVER good policy in the long run. They should have strongly let it be known there were other reasons for dealing with Saddam.

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Well, you've got to leave over some material for a good memoir...