Monday, March 27, 2006

Another Memo

How many memos need to come out before the American Public finally believes that Bush WANTED to go to war? How many different people need to say that the policies and intelligence were fixed around the pre-supposition that war was coming because the Bush administration wanted it so?

And when will those saying, "So what," to all of that finally throw their hands up in the air and say the war was contrived nonsense for the detriment of all involved except those that will profit from it?

I'm just sick of people praising the war as a good thing. Not even this war specifically, either. Any war.

But I live in Utah, I bet I have to deal with that more than people in other states.

War is a bad thing. Whatever the reason, it's not something you should ever want to do. This memo that came out just proves how out of step the Bush Administration is with humanity.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm having difficulty squaring this statement of yours:

"How many memos need to come out before the American Public finally believes that Bush WANTED to go to war? "

With the memo quoted in the article:

"Bush agreed. He commented that he was not itching to go to war, but we could not allow Saddam to go on playing with us."

Wanting war is different from predicting war. I still haven't seen anything that leads me to believe Bush wanted war.

Anonymous said...

War is supposed to be a last resort, going to war under false pretenses is something you should at least have to answer to.

Personally, I find it a little upsetting that the US is fighting Iraq's own civil war, If Bush didn't want war, he would have tried harder to reason with Saddam Hussein. All we had were threats and demands, how many going to respond to that?

Unknown said...

"During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times."

That sounds like he wanted to go to war to me.

Anonymous said...

Why, because it uses the words "he was determined to invade Iraq"? If you read the whole sentence together it says that the U.N.'s findings wouldn't affect his decision to go to war, and that's because U.N. weapons inspectors couldn't change the fact that Saddam was financing terrorism, consorting with Al-Qaida, and terrorizing his own people on a daily basis.

WMDs were only one of the reasons we were going to invade Iraq, and the U.N. was being completely unreasonable. We now know that the reason the U.N. was voting against us was because a U.S.-led invasion would've stopped the flow of the gravy train now known as the Oil-for-Food scandal.

Unknown said...

Actually, there was no consorting between Saddam and international terrorism. Even Bush back pedals on the Iraq-Al Quaida issue now.

Yes, Saddam was terrorizing his people. That sucked. But the way we went about fixing it was wrong.

The UN didn't want the war because they knew it would turn out as bad as it has. And let's be fair, as many Americans benefited from the Oil-for-food scandal as foreigners.

Anonymous said...

Um, yes there was consorting between Saddam and international terrorism. It's in the 9/11 Commission report. He also financed suicide bombers in Palestine, which is located somewhere outside Iraq. Also, there were Al-Qaida terrorist training camps in Iraq, which the coalition forces dismantled in the beginning of the war.

How would you have solved the problem of Saddam terrorizing his people? In the year of debate preceding the war and the 3 years since I haven't heard anyone suggest any viable alternatives.

Wow, I don't remember the U.N. saying anything about the war turning out badly. I remember them wanting to make more resolutions while ignoring Saddam's long and illustrious history of ignoring them.

I think it makes more sense that the security council rejected a resolution to depose Saddam because three of the big five, France, China, and Russia, had all been dealing under the table with Saddam and they knew if we invaded they would be cut out of their lucrative deals.

Some American businessmen (like 3) were indicted for the oil-for-food scandal, but unlike France, Germany, and Russia, government officials in the U.S. have not been implicated.

Anonymous said...

For "a silent observer" you sure do talk a lot!

In response to your question of how to better solve the "Saddam terrorizing his own people problem", since when did anyone give the US the authority to act as the world's morality police? Yeah, it sucked what he was doing to his people, but how is that our business? How would you like it if I came over to your home and started bossing you around because I felt that my morals and values were correct and yours were wrong?

Chew on that for awhile, and don't bother with rhetoric and name-calling, I don't want to hear either.

Unknown said...

Ummm... The 9/11 comission report doesn't have anything conclusively linking Saddam to Al-Quada. That would be like the Nazis and the Americans teaming up to kill the Russians in World War II.

As for American implication in the oil for food scandal, remember how the US was the ones who exposed it? Well, they redacted the names of prominent Americans in the report. No wonder so few have been prosecuted.

Anonymous said...

since when did anyone give the US the authority to act as the world's morality police?

Since 9/11/01. That day proved that we can't just sit on our hands while terrorists train in countries where the government provides refuge and financial support for their activities. If we did, you could never rule out the fact that they might someday fly some airplanes into your office building.

The 9/11 comission report doesn't have anything conclusively linking Saddam to Al-Quada.

I quote from the report:

"Bin Laden also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein's secular regime. Bin Laden had in fact at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Laden to cease this support and arranged for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Laden in 1994."

What you hear most people say is that there is no link between 9/11 and Iraq, which is true. But to say that there was no link between Al-Qaida and Iraq is false.