Bush - "War President"

[Guest Guest]

This may shock you but when a dictator threatens the security of the US and the region, the US certainly does have an interest in "regime change". Ask the Clinton Administration. Kinda hard to have a democracy in the Middle East? Don't look now, junior, but Iraq has already written their own constitution and has held three elections. Elections, I might add, where millions of Iraqi's risked their lives to walk for miles and wait in line for hours. Your sophomoric take on history was cited by those morons who believed democracy was impossible in Japan and Germany. "You know those Orientals.......they don't relate to democracy." Luckily, those idiots were ignored in the '40's and moonbats like yourself are being ignored today, even by the likes of Hillary, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi.

Saudi Arabia is hardly a democracy but then again, it hasn't threatened its neighbors, or us. This all kinda throws a curve to your assumptions.......hmmmmmm?

No "substantial terroristic occupation" in Saddam's Iraq? What exactly are you trying to say? Do you believe that if you throw some words together, it will make you sound intelligent? Sorry......it isn't working.

Look, your blustering is quite amusing. But it doesn't make up for your 10th Grade grasp on world history. Take a college class or two. I see those flyers everywhere downtown.

 

 

Here we go once again making moronic comparisons of Japan and WW II and the Middle East in 2003.

 

Duh.

[Guest twisted]

We shouldn't be setting up governments for other countries though. and bush uses the war as a cover as he failed at every other part of being president

[toonsiesdrvgcat]

Did Bill Clinton pass up a chance to kill Osama bin Laden?

Was Bill Clinton offered bin Laden on "a silver platter"? Did he refuse? Was there cause at the time?

A: Probably not, and it would not have mattered anyway as there was no evidence at the time that bin Laden had committed any crimes against American citizens.

Let’s start with what everyone agrees on: In April 1996, Osama bin Laden was an official guest of the radical Islamic government of Sudan – a government that had been implicated in the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993. By 1996, with the international community treating Sudan as a pariah, the Sudanese government attempted to patch its relations with the United States. At a secret meeting in a Rosslyn, Va., hotel, the Sudanese minister of state for defense, Maj. Gen. Elfatih Erwa, met with CIA operatives, where, among other things, they discussed Osama bin Laden.

 

It is here that things get murky. Erwa claims that he offered to hand bin Laden over to the United States. Key American players – President Bill Clinton, then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Director of Counterterrorism Richard Clarke among them – have testified there were no "credible offers" to hand over bin Laden. The 9/11 Commission found "no credible evidence" that Erwa had ever made such an offer. On the other hand, Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Looming Tower," flatly states that Sudan did make such an offer. Wright bases his judgment on an interview with Erwa and notes that those who most prominently deny Erwa's claims were not in fact present for the meeting.

 

Wright and the 9/11 Commission do agree that the Clinton administration encouraged Sudan to deport bin Laden back to Saudi Arabia and spent 10 weeks trying to convince the Saudi government to accept him. One Clinton security official told The Washington Post that they had "a fantasy" that the Saudi government would quietly execute bin Laden. When the Saudis refused bin Laden’s return, Clinton officials convinced the Sudanese simply to expel him, hoping that the move would at least disrupt bin Laden’s activities.

 

Much of the controversy stems from claims that President Clinton made in a February 2002 speech and then retracted in his 2004 testimony to the 9/11 Commission. In the 2002 speech Clinton seems to admit that the Sudanese government offered to turn over bin Laden:

 

Clinton: So we tried to be quite aggressive with them [al Qaeda]. We got – well, Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan. And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again. They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America. So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan.

 

Clinton later claimed to have misspoken and stated that there had never been an offer to turn over bin Laden. It is clear, however, that Berger, at least, did consider the possibility of bringing bin Laden to the U.S., but, as he told The Washington Post in 2001, "The FBI did not believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time, and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States." According to NewsMax.com, Berger later emphasized in an interview with WABC Radio that, while administration officials had discussed whether or not they had ample evidence to indict bin Laden, that decision "was not pursuant to an offer by the Sudanese."

 

So on one side, we have Clinton administration officials who say that there were no credible offers on the table, and on the other, we have claims by a Sudanese government that was (and still is) listed as an official state sponsor of terrorism. It’s possible, of course, that both sides are telling the truth: It could be that Erwa did make an offer, but the offer was completely disingenuous. What is clear is that the 9/11 Commission report totally discounts the Sudanese claims. Unless further evidence arises, that has to be the final word.

 

Ultimately, however, it doesn’t matter. What is not in dispute at all is the fact that, in early 1996, American officials regarded Osama bin Laden as a financier of terrorism and not as a mastermind largely because, at the time, there was no real evidence that bin Laden had harmed American citizens. So even if the Sudanese government really did offer to hand bin Laden over, the U.S. would have had no grounds for detaining him. In fact, the Justice Department did not secure an indictment against bin Laden until 1998 – at which point Clinton did order a cruise missile attack on an al Qaeda camp in an attempt to kill bin Laden.

 

We have to be careful about engaging in what historians call "Whig history," which is the practice of assuming that historical figures value exactly the same things that we do today. It's a fancy term for those "why didn't someone just shoot Hitler in 1930?" questions that one hears in dorm-room bull sessions. The answer, of course, is that no one knew quite how bad Hitler was in 1930. The same is true of bin Laden in 1996.

 

Correction: We originally answered this question with a flat 'yes' early this week, based on the account in "The Looming Tower," but an alert reader pointed out to us the more tangled history laid out in the 9/11 Commission report. We said flatly that Sudan had made such an offer. We have deleted our original answer and are posting this corrected version in its place.

 

 

Sources

"1996 CIA Memo to Sudanese Official." Washington Post, 3 Oct. 2001.

 

[Guest Guest]

this thread proves once and for all that broome county is the moron capital of the earth. we are no.1 in sex offenders too.

[marius]

this thread proves once and for all that broome county is the moron capital of the earth. we are no.1 in sex offenders too.

 

you post proves that more than anything this thread ever could.

[Guest Guest]

you post proves that more than anything this thread ever could.

 

 

thanks for proving my point. next time, try english.

 

[Guest Guest]

We Demos do not hate Republicans... We liked Bush's father he was a decent President. We were not crazy over regan but we did not hate him. BUT WE CAN NOT STAND GEORGE W. BUSH - WE DISLIKE HIM - HE IS PURE EVIL - HE IS POLARIZING - HE IS NOT GOD - HE IS A NEOCON!!

[Guest Guest]

You are indeed correct about itraq being on the list - sorry for the error. Saddam offered monetary rewards for the family of any Palastinian who died in a suicide bomb against Israel. My mistake - sorry.

 

As far as the speech being months after the congressional vote. Me - and many otehr people were leery and leaning against the war (actually the majority of Americans were against it til that point) until the speech - which scared the bejesus out of me and many other people. Public opinion swung wildly to the side of invading, with my fullest support. And no, British intelligence does not still support that claim and no american Intelligence Agency does either. Not he Cia - not the NSA - none of them. and when Bush made the speech, he knew it was a lie. It is unfortunate. I think he could have garnered support without doing that and I believe that there were many other reasons to go to war in Iraq other than that issue of nukes.

 

Congratulations on being part of an element that wanted to keep Saddam in power. The Iraqi Baathists and Jihadists are in your debt.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble, but British intelligence does support its initial conclusion that Iraqi's were seeking out yellowcake in Niger. I provided three links in an earlier post. You have provided nothing but your BDS-addled rantings.

 

Speaking of documentation, what can you provide to support your delusion that Bush KNEW the Niger story was a lie? Additionally, I find it interesting - but not suprising - that Lib moonbats screech endlessly about Bush lies. Yet they can only point to those 16 words in Bush's 2003 SOTU speech. One would suppose that after eight SOTU speeches comprising of hundreds of thousands of words, that the moonbat Left could find something, anything else. Apparently, not. Pathetic.

 

Also, earlier I pointed out in another post that readers should not expect any examples of Bush's so-called "lies" here. There is always one poster who claims to have thousands of examples, yet he never cites any.........he's too tired of posting the same list of 4000 lies. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighht.

 

Carry on, Lefty Lemming.

 

[Guest Guest]

Congratulations on being part of an element that wanted to keep Saddam in power. The Iraqi Baathists and Jihadists are in your debt.

 

More sheer idiocy.

 

Saddam's Baathists were not Islamic Fundamentalists.

 

[Guest Henry K]

Our own revolution should teach us the difficulty of maintaining an empire even if you are the most powerful country in the world.

 

The wars in the Philippines and Vietnam should show how difficult it is to fight against insurgents.

 

Our occupation of Germany, Japan and Korea should show us how easy it is to get out of a country once you are there.

 

The fall of the Soviet Union should show us what happens when you throw money at the military.

 

We won the war to defeat Iraq so it's not a question of winning or not, how long are we going to be in the middle of a civil war, how long are we going to fight people who don't want us.

 

 

 

[Guest Guest]

More sheer idiocy.

 

Saddam's Baathists were not Islamic Fundamentalists.

 

 

More lefty obuscation. No one said that the Baathists were Islamic Fundamentalists. There you go again arguing against yourself. The Baathists under the leadership of Saddam were responsible for the filling of mass graves with hundreds of thousands of victims.

[Guest Guest]

obfuscation = obuscation

[Guest Guest]

Our own revolution should teach us the difficulty of maintaining an empire even if you are the most powerful country in the world.

 

The wars in the Philippines and Vietnam should show how difficult it is to fight against insurgents.

 

Our occupation of Germany, Japan and Korea should show us how easy it is to get out of a country once you are there.

 

The fall of the Soviet Union should show us what happens when you throw money at the military.

 

We won the war to defeat Iraq so it's not a question of winning or not, how long are we going to be in the middle of a civil war, how long are we going to fight people who don't want us.

 

 

There is no civil war in Iraq, despite what the Olberdunce says. The US leaves when the Iraqi government asks us to leave. Its simple.

[Guest Guest]

More lefty obuscation. No one said that the Baathists were Islamic Fundamentalists. There you go again arguing against yourself. The Baathists under the leadership of Saddam were responsible for the filling of mass graves with hundreds of thousands of victims.

 

Please....just once....explain to us how that's our business.

 

Doesn't your wail and cry create justification to invade a few dozen other places around the world?

 

Well, of course it does. It's just that all those other places arent' sitting on top of one of the largest known oil reserves in the world.

[Guest Guest]

Like iran..we have more justification to go there..not sayin we should

[Guest Guest]

Please....just once....explain to us how that's our business.

 

Doesn't your wail and cry create justification to invade a few dozen other places around the world?

 

Well, of course it does. It's just that all those other places arent' sitting on top of one of the largest known oil reserves in the world.

 

So tell me.......just how much oil has the US pumped out of Iraq? Your "oil argument" is hollow. And always has been. We might as well have invaded Venezuela. Its a lot closer and the food is better.

 

My so-called "wail and cry" does not justify US invasion of a few dozen other places around the word. Once again, you have set up a strawman argument that I, at least, am not advancing. So what am I saying.......(oooooooooooh, I just love this part) just click on the below link and Saint Hillary will explain everything to you.

 

http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html

 

READ AND ENJOY!!!!

[Guest Guest]

Congratulations on being part of an element that wanted to keep Saddam in power. The Iraqi Baathists and Jihadists are in your debt.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble, but British intelligence does support its initial conclusion that Iraqi's were seeking out yellowcake in Niger. I provided three links in an earlier post. You have provided nothing but your BDS-addled rantings.

 

Speaking of documentation, what can you provide to support your delusion that Bush KNEW the Niger story was a lie? Additionally, I find it interesting - but not suprising - that Lib moonbats screech endlessly about Bush lies. Yet they can only point to those 16 words in Bush's 2003 SOTU speech. One would suppose that after eight SOTU speeches comprising of hundreds of thousands of words, that the moonbat Left could find something, anything else. Apparently, not. Pathetic.

 

Also, earlier I pointed out in another post that readers should not expect any examples of Bush's so-called "lies" here. There is always one poster who claims to have thousands of examples, yet he never cites any.........he's too tired of posting the same list of 4000 lies. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighht.

 

Carry on, Lefty Lemming.

 

Your post is so riddled with inaccuracies that it would take half a book to correct them all, so I wont bother, you would not understand and accept reality anyway. Kepp on livin those fantasies, they have worked well for our country for the last 7 years.

[Guest Guest]

Your post is so riddled with inaccuracies that it would take half a book to correct them all, so I wont bother, you would not understand and accept reality anyway. Kepp on livin those fantasies, they have worked well for our country for the last 7 years.

 

 

 

Your comment is a rich source of insults, ignorance and wishful thinking. It does do a good job of showing why combining those traits is generally not a good habit.

[Guest Guest]

So tell me.......just how much oil has the US pumped out of Iraq? Your "oil argument" is hollow. And always has been. We might as well have invaded Venezuela. Its a lot closer and the food is better.

 

My so-called "wail and cry" does not justify US invasion of a few dozen other places around the word. Once again, you have set up a strawman argument that I, at least, am not advancing. So what am I saying.......(oooooooooooh, I just love this part) just click on the below link and Saint Hillary will explain everything to you.

 

http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html

 

READ AND ENJOY!!!!

 

 

I see you can't answer two simple questions:

 

Please....just once....explain to us how that's our business.

 

Doesn't your wail and cry create justification to invade a few dozen other places around the world?

 

You resort to changing the subject and injecting a few other ideas in in order to avoid answering.....and crying "HILLARY!!!" every time someone criticizes GWB.

 

Nice try.

 

 

Has Iraq stopped pumping oil altogether? I didn't know they had.

 

If GWB could "prove" that Venezuela had WMD's and there MIGHT BE some terrorists there, don't think for a minute that he wouldn't invade there, too. Otherwise, your Venezuela point is foolish.

 

[Guest Guest]

I see you can't answer two simple questions:

 

Please....just once....explain to us how that's our business.

 

Doesn't your wail and cry create justification to invade a few dozen other places around the world?

 

You resort to changing the subject and injecting a few other ideas in in order to avoid answering.....and crying "HILLARY!!!" every time someone criticizes GWB.

 

Nice try.

 

 

Has Iraq stopped pumping oil altogether? I didn't know they had.

 

If GWB could "prove" that Venezuela had WMD's and there MIGHT BE some terrorists there, don't think for a minute that he wouldn't invade there, too. Otherwise, your Venezuela point is foolish.

 

 

You obviously didn't click the Hillary link. Go ahead. I promise it won't physically hurt. Of course, it may shake your comfortable liberal assumptions about what you THINK you know about history.

Go ahead.........DOOOOOOOOOOOOO IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT.

 

Then be sure to come back. I'm not through with you yet.

 

[Guest Henry K]

The problem with comparing Iraq is that people do not know much about history.

 

A key point is that the US did not get involved in the war until we were attacked, period. Germany and Japan were threats for almost two years before Japan was bold enough to attack the US. Roosevelt knew that the only way to get the people behind such an effort was for them to feel endangered. You can yammer all you want about the threats that the Bush administration has been unable to prove, there was no attack.

 

The country was united by the draft so all shared in the effort. Bush was afraid that his position was too tenuous to ask for a draft. We have not asked the country to share in the effort.

 

Roosevelt asked for a declaration of war, forthright and direct. Every thing Bush does is by the back door. No declaration of war, no draft, pay for the war "off budget", ignore Congress by issuing signing statements, ignoring the Geneva Convention. Bush is not a "War President" he is the "Spin President"

 

In four years the US and it's allies defeated the combined forces of Japan, Germany and Italy. In four years we still have soldiers being killed in Iraq.

 

In World War II we had a clear cut enemy, took and held territory and were able to finish fighting when governments surrendered. In Iraq, who are we still fighting, anything concrete or specific, clearly delineated so were might know we have won. One person says it's not a civil war, another said that the leader of Iraq decides US troop deployment. How do you win when you can't describe victory.

 

Spending some time with the history books might be a good idea. You might also want to read about the British and French success at occupying the Middle East after WW I and WW II.

[Guest Guest]

The problem with comparing Iraq is that people do not know much about history.

 

A key point is that the US did not get involved in the war until we were attacked, period. Germany and Japan were threats for almost two years before Japan was bold enough to attack the US. Roosevelt knew that the only way to get the people behind such an effort was for them to feel endangered. You can yammer all you want about the threats that the Bush administration has been unable to prove, there was no attack.

 

The country was united by the draft so all shared in the effort. Bush was afraid that his position was too tenuous to ask for a draft. We have not asked the country to share in the effort.

 

Roosevelt asked for a declaration of war, forthright and direct. Every thing Bush does is by the back door. No declaration of war, no draft, pay for the war "off budget", ignore Congress by issuing signing statements, ignoring the Geneva Convention. Bush is not a "War President" he is the "Spin President"

 

In four years the US and it's allies defeated the combined forces of Japan, Germany and Italy. In four years we still have soldiers being killed in Iraq.

 

In World War II we had a clear cut enemy, took and held territory and were able to finish fighting when governments surrendered. In Iraq, who are we still fighting, anything concrete or specific, clearly delineated so were might know we have won. One person says it's not a civil war, another said that the leader of Iraq decides US troop deployment. How do you win when you can't describe victory.

 

Spending some time with the history books might be a good idea. You might also want to read about the British and French success at occupying the Middle East after WW I and WW II.

 

 

Its obvious that your knowledge of history is extremely deficient. How can you say that the US was not involved in World War II until we were attacked? Haven't you ever heard of FDR's destroyer deal with Great Britain? How about the Lend-Lease Program? The US was active in the Allied war effort well before 12/7/41.

In a post-9/11 world, waiting to be physically attacked is suicidal. Saddam was given ample time to comply with UN Resolution 1441 yet disregarded it. Saddam never once honored the surrender agreement. END OF STORY.

How do you know that Bush didn't initiate a draft because he was afraid his position was too "tenuous"? What is your documentation? Or could it be that he and the generals did not feel a draft was necessary? Please provide your link.

The US could have easily ended the Iraq War in, say, one day. Just drop an a-bomb on Baghdad the way Truman did on Hiroshima. There........problem solved. Are you advocating this? Clarify.

Victory will be attained when Iraqi forces can handle their own security. Then US troops are gone........without leveling Baghdad, I might add. And without "occupying" the Middle East (whatever that means).

Don't bother giving me or anyone else any kind of advice about history. You are obviously woefully ignorant on the subject.

 

 

 

[Guest Guest]

Many people forget history about 5 minutes after it's passed.

Never forget the umpteen times that Hillary declared Saddam the scourge of the world who needed to be removed, during the 1990's and up until Pres. Bush ordered action in 2003.

Lets not forget the "cruel Afghan winter", the "graveyard of Empires", the thousand of body bags that would come back, the vicious street fighting awaiting in Baghdad, the fierce Mujahadin that defeated the USSR (and kidnap Catholic Korean girls), etc.

 

[GALVATRON]

I see you can't answer two simple questions:

 

Please....just once....explain to us how that's our business.

 

Doesn't your wail and cry create justification to invade a few dozen other places around the world?

 

You resort to changing the subject and injecting a few other ideas in in order to avoid answering.....and crying "HILLARY!!!" every time someone criticizes GWB.

 

Nice try.

 

 

Has Iraq stopped pumping oil altogether? I didn't know they had.

 

If GWB could "prove" that Venezuela had WMD's and there MIGHT BE some terrorists there, don't think for a minute that he wouldn't invade there, too. Otherwise, your Venezuela point is foolish.

Why don't you answer these questions,

Do you want to be killed by terrorists?

Why do you hate Bush for trying to rid the world of terrorists?

Did you see any TV footage of 9-11?

What would you have done if you were President on 9-11-01,nothing?

and in my opinion if a country crashes planes into civilian buildings,killing thousands of Americans(lucky for you you were not flying that day)then it becomes our business,and the Iraq people should be thanking Bush for not turning it into a crater.

[Guest Guest]

For the record, Iraq committed over 2000 violations of the cease-fire signed by them after Operation Desert Storm. That's tantamount to over 2000 declarations of war, is it not? Just asking.

 

According to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, ignoring UN Resolutions is in fact punishable by military action against the offending country.

 

http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/chapter7.htm

 

Even Hillary made a great case for war against Saddam. Plus she said at the time that she didn't rely on Bush....she relied on her HUSBAND'S intel guys.