US Bashing

[Skipjack]

One more thing to consider about Guatanamo and that is what I hate about it the most. People are kept there without a process. Innocent until proven guilty. That is the law, but not there. Some of the people there have been tortured and were innocent. It is a disgrace!
Once you have had them at court and proven them guilty you may do to them whatever you want, but before that...

[TallDave]

Lybia, Syria, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Palestinia. They all do much more to support terrorism against Israel and the US than Iraq ever did.

Libya has gotten a lot better. Syria is too poor to finance much terrorism, unlike Saddam who was giving out $25,000 bounties for acts of terror against Israel.

Jordan, the UAE, and the Saudis are not governments that sponsor terrorism.

Iran is certainly a major problem, but they haven't blatantly violated Westphalian norms the way Saddam did in seizing Kuwait, which again is where that whole issue started.

[TallDave]

One more thing to consider about Guatanamo and that is what I hate about it the most. People are kept there without a process

Which France does routinely, as do quite a few other countries -- and as was done with Aldrich Ames. It's actually common practice for spies and saboteurs. In WW II, such were summarily executed.

That is the law, but not there.

That is the law for U.S. citizens who have committed civilian crimes.

Once you have had them at court and proven them guilty you may do to them whatever you want,

No, you can't. Coercive interrogations are not lawful for civilians. Also, simply belonging to AQ is not a crime. This isn't like the Mafia, where you can let them commit crimes while you build a case.

[Skipjack]

Iran is certainly a major problem, but they haven't blatantly violated Westphalian norms the way Saddam did in seizing Kuwait, which again is where that whole issue started.

But he did that 10 years before the US invaded Iraq in the second gulf war! Iran has always been a bigger problem for the US and Israel, much bigger problem than Iraq every was. Why do you think the US supported Iraq with intelligence and military power in its war against Iran?
Iran still is a bigger problem, even though Syria and Jordan have been sending terrorists and terrorist recruiters into Iraq since the start of this war to recruit among those that hate the US (e.g. because they lost children, or other relatives to US bombs).
And the Saudies might be trying to appear nice, but they so are not nice people. Get your facts straight!

[TallDave]

But he did that 10 years before the US invaded Iraq in the second gulf war!

And we were still there 10 years later because he never lived up to the cease-fire agreement. No invasion of Kuwait and we never show up.

Iran still is a bigger problem

No. We did not have huge numbers of troops and equipment in the area because of Iran. Post-1991, Iraq was a much bigger problem. No-fly-zones, sanctions, inspections, etc.

Why do you think the US supported Iraq with intelligence and military power in its war against Iran?

What military power are you under the impression we supplied him with? You may have noticed his armaments were almost entirely of Russian origin. Our friends in Europe, meanwhile, sold him a nuclear reactor (thanks guys!) which Israel then bombed.

And the Saudies might be trying to appear nice, but they so are not nice people

They may not be nice, but the Saudi government is not sponsoring terrorists. In fact, they have been a target of AQ.

Get your facts straight!

You badly need to take your own advice.

[Mike Holmes]

He's just saying we don't have any sort of obvious Cassus Belli against Iran, which is true. Basically we don't intervene with the army unless such exists. Saddam Hussein did give plenty of Cassus Belli.

We probably could have gone in without claims of WMD, and gotten away with it (who would have done something to stop us?). The point is that we did claim WMD, in an obvious attempt to gain symptathy before hand, and when that turned out to be substantively untrue, the world felt lied to. Whether or not it was a lie - I won't debate - it's going to come off that way.

George W made a mistake that George HW never would have. Talent skips a generation, you know...

I have to laugh at the Jordan reference. Given that Queen Noor is from Texas, I think we're OK there. Her kids have gotten what can only be described as a liberal education.

Bin Laden is a distant relative to the Saudi royalty at best. His father was in with them on construction deals, however, and that's where he had his contact with them. He consequently has formed an opinion of them that they need to be removed. This is his whole philosophy, that only Sharia law should exist. As such, he considers the Saudi Royalty, in fact EVERY government in any Muslim country, to be a problem that needs rectifying.

In this way he's very opposite of Libya's leadership (not even going to attempt to spell Mohammar's last name). He would like to see "Pan-Arabism" unite all Muslim lands. And has been working lately to try to make his regime seem more legitimate in his old age. I have no idea how far to trust that old fox, however.

If there were, in fact, some sort of agreement in the Arab world about... well anything... then we'd be in far, far more danger than we are. But the fact is that at the very best Bin Laden is seen like some sort of pious Robin Hood sort of character. Most actually see him as the dangerously destabilizing force that he really is.


As far as defending our shipping in WWII... again, how is doing that somehow us helping out the world? Lend Lease? Sure, fine, we were being proactive, because we knew we might have to get involved on the ground otherwise (and in fact did). We were allies, you know, a team. We're supposed to all thank each other for being on the right side. But, while we might have supplied more economic power, the Soviet Union lost some fifty times as many soldiers (to say nothing of the unknown number of civilians) during the war. So... should we be thanking them?

How about we just call it even? Especially considering the 60 years of history that have passed since. Heck, we should be grovelling to the French because they sold us the Louisiana Purchase cheap?

Politics is a "what have you done for me lately?" game. If we have, in our history, set a high bar for achievement in world politics, then it is that same high bar that we'll have to continue to achieve to be lauded for it. No resting on our laurels.

What, you thought that nations had retirement plans?

Mike

[seedload]

But he did that 10 years before the US invaded Iraq in the second gulf war!

And we were still there 10 years later because he never lived up to the cease-fire agreement. No invasion of Kuwait and we never show up.

... and this is where it comes full circle back WWII.

Hitler rebuilt the German Army and committed aggressive action after aggressive action in complete disregard for the treaties that ended WWI. No one took any action. The result - the casualties sighted in that post and the heroic actions of the United States of America that ended the war.

Now, Iraq acts in complete disregard for the cease-fire and UN resolutions that ended the first Gulf War. Saddam rejects weapons inspections despite the UN pressure for them. Yes, we were wrong about WMD, but, if they had let the United Nations come and take a look then we wouldn't have been. What other conclusion could be drawn from their refusal in the face of international pressure and UN resolutions? Are we to repeat the mistakes of the past and act passively!? Are we to ignor our own stated policy of pre-emption against terror? No, Saddam was a threat to the US and to Isreal, our ally, because he made himself one. We hear that the US lied to the UN! IRAQ LIED TO THE UN!!! This is so backwards it isn't even funny.

[alexjrgreen]

Just please don't ask us to give America the benefit of the doubt when you lie in the UN about WMDs and torture your prisoners...

This is the kind of ignorant slander that makes us wonder why the hell we keep saving the rest of the world from itself.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/19/powell.un/
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Politics/story?id=1105979

http://a.abcnews.com/WNT/story?id=1707023
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature ... index.html

[Mike Holmes]

Dave, we sent Saddam all manner of arms under Reagan. Delivered by hand by one Donald Rumsfeld. We also gave them DIA support, and loaned Saddam billions. This was the policy of "Dual Containment."

I recall waiting to go to the Desert Storm (never got the call), and reading about just how we'd armed this tyrant, and how his army was formidable, because we'd made sure it was, in order to stop the Iranians.

Oh, yeah, and we never helped out the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan against the Soviets either, right? Riiiiight. We couldn't have had anything to do with the formation of Al Queda.

Let's just admit the publically admitted mistakes of the past and just take credit for at least trying to clean up our mess. Don't get me wrong... who knows what would have happened if we let the Iranians beat Hussein, or let the Soviets take Afghanistan. It may have been worse for us. But the end results haven't always been sparkling pure.

Mike

[Skipjack]

What military power are you under the impression we supplied him with? You may have noticed his armaments were almost entirely of Russian origin. Our friends in Europe, meanwhile, sold him a nuclear reactor (thanks guys!) which Israel then bombed.

As I stated earlier, this is absolutely not true. Not matter how much you hate the fact. Both France and GB supplied him with weapons. His planes were to big part French F1s.

From Wikipedia:
"The Iraqis had more suppliers like the Warsaw Pact nations, France, Great Britain, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.
[...]
In 1982 with Iranian success on the battlefield, the U.S. made its backing of Iraq more pronounced, supplying it with intelligence, economic aid, normalizing relations with the government (broken during the 1967 Six-Day War), and also supplying weapons.[38] President Ronald Reagan decided that the United States "could not afford to allow Iraq to lose the war to Iran", and that the United States "would do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran."[39][40] President Reagan formalized this policy by issuing a National Security Decision Directive ("NSDD") to this effect in June, 1982.

Also read about Operation Nimble Archer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nimble_Archer

I admit that I was wrong about Bin Laden being a member of the Saudi Royal family, however the Bin Ladens were close friends with the Al Faisal family.
I dont think to highly of them, they are shady at best. I dont have time to look up all the stuff that was going on there, but I would be more careful when choosing my allies among those beduins. So far the US does not have a great record of choosing their allies in the middle east.

Saddam rejects weapons inspections despite the UN pressure for them

While the weapons inspectors were met with resistance, they were actually able to finish checking things out. The only "evidence" there was against Iraq at the time was the suspicion that he was moving MWDs arround while slowing down the inspectors.

[gblaze42]

Just please don't ask us to give America the benefit of the doubt when you lie in the UN about WMDs and torture your prisoners...

This is the kind of ignorant slander that makes us wonder why the hell we keep saving the rest of the world from itself.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/19/powell.un/
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Politics/story?id=1105979

http://a.abcnews.com/WNT/story?id=1707023
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature ... index.html

I have a friend from El Salvador, he does the same thing, comes down on America pretty hard, as it seems trendy to do. He wonders why America does such "horrible" things like 'lie' in the UN as well. Yet oddly enough when I ask him about the country he lives in he loves it, even though he tells me that most of the people there live in terror because they could easily be killed at a bus stop if a gang member wanted their cell phone, or shoes, or whatever else they liked. He has no love for the government that really is only interested in taking money from people and not protecting them.

Yet he thinks, very oddly, that US is where the problems are.

My suggestion, as I gave him, focus on the log in your own eye before going after the mote in someone else's.

[Skipjack]

most of the people there live in terror because they could easily be killed at a bus stop if a gang member wanted their cell phone, or shoes, or whatever else they liked

Sounds like LA to me
JK

[Mike Holmes]

There was a lot of other circumstantial evidence on the side of WMD (supposedly shady purchases, for instance). Whether real or doctored, I don't think we'll ever know, but a careful reading of the subject throws the intelligence at least into strong doubt as to it's veracity. I believe that Colin Powell was honestly (on his part) bamboozled into making his assessment - I vividly recall the prepared statement he made. Bush... well Bush believed what he wanted to believe. That here was his smoking gun, and he wasn't going to ask too many questions about it that might foul up his rationale to go to war with the men who'd tried to kill his daddy (amongst all the other rational reasons).

Again, I've been far less vocal about the reasons for going, given that we did manage to remove Saddam Hussein, and more vocal about the half-assed way in which it was attempted at first. Only the French can deny a clear winner (I kid, because I love).

Mike

[gblaze42]

There was a lot of other circumstantial evidence on the side of WMD (supposedly shady purchases, for instance). Whether real or doctored, I don't think we'll ever know, but a careful reading of the subject throws the intelligence at least into strong doubt as to it's veracity. I believe that Colin Powell was honestly (on his part) bamboozled into making his assessment - I vividly recall the prepared statement he made. Bush... well Bush believed what he wanted to believe. That here was his smoking gun, and he wasn't going to ask too many questions about it that might foul up his rationale to go to war with the men who'd tried to kill his daddy (amongst all the other rational reasons).

The fact actually is Powell was pressured into announcing that Iraq had WMD's because Cheney/Rumsfield needed a someone to be able to take the fall, these guys wanted to go back into Iraq so badly that Cheney created a branch of the CIA to feed false information about WMD's.

But of course all of this is public knowledge now.

[Skipjack]

Being the paranoid that I am, I cant help wondering how the supposedly best intelligence agencies in the world could make such mistakes.
If I was not being such a politically correct person (loughs), I might feel tempted to suggest that there was intent in this false information.