Why is the comparison being made? What does this have to do with Bush leading the nation into war on fraudulent terms? I'm not here to debate the Clinton presidency--which was far from perfect, and which I have made no attempt to defend in this thread. But bringing up Clinton's rhetoric only serves to deflect criticism from Bush and away from the argument at hand.
I'm not a Democrat, GAC.
But the reactions were SIGNIFICANTLY different...bombing a suspected arms depot and invading and occupying a country aren't even in the same league...but let's discuss more below.
Outraged, no. I save my outrages for egregious acts of incompetency or falsifications that lead to the deaths of thousands. Fraudulent? It certainly appears that it was, it was misleading or exagerrated evidence. But, again, who here is defending Clinton's actions? This isn't about Clinton.
Would I have liked to see them take a stronger anti-war stance? Yes. But voting for the approval of the use of force if necessary--versus a complete support of the war--are not the same things. No one wanted to let Saddam run amok, create WMDs and become a significant security threat. But that's what the UN inspectors were there for, and according to evidence we've seen after the invasion, they were doing their job--the inspection program was effective.
The government grants police the use of force if necessary to subdue a subject, but if the police abuse their authority, it doesn't mean the government supports it.
Well, unfortunately, Wes, much like Hillary and Kerry and others, are politicians at heart, and they play that card, and play it safe. But do i think that this country would be embroiled in a war in Iraq seemingly wihtout end if Clark, Kerry or another Dem were President? Not for a second.
Well, I would tend to agree with you that their public statements on this war were meant to play the political game--as much as any of the statements by Republicans were. But this is a war propagated by Bush--he wanted it from the beginning. Transcripts of White House conversations only days after September 11 had Bush searching for a way to "tie this to Iraq." Afghanistan was a diversion, Iraq is what he always wanted. No Democrat--and certainly some Republicans as well--sitting in the Oval office would have led this nation to war under the circumstances that Bush did.
Yes, because you can't defeat terrorism with an armed force. It doesn't work that way. Not that you ever would, but I highly recommend Chomsky's "9/11" for an outstanding narrative on the ways to combat terrorism. He explains it far better than I ever could, at least while making this post still readable.
And, just so we're clear on this: the number of global terrorist attacks during 2004 was an all-time high. This is after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, three years after our launch of the so-called "war on terrorism"...terrorism must be addressed at its core, which means a fundamental change in the way America conducts itself in the world, and the way we construct our foreign policy. A lot of people don't want to do that, or believe that we can "force" the terrorists into submission. Sadly, they will find that is not the case.
First of all, I haven't defended ANYONE here. And if you feel that I have, I would appreciate quotes I have made to that effect.
Secondly, I am a registered member of the Green Party, and no one in "my" party voiced any type of support for the war at all. But, then again, you simply *assumed* I was a Democrat because I don't support Republican policies.
Well, I'm not going to list a point-by-point rebuttal to this, only to say that--people hear what they want to hear, and believe what they want to believe. Bush had plenty of evidence to show that Saddam, for example, didn't attempt to purchase yellow cake uranium in Nigeria, didn't try to align himself with Al Qaeda, didn't have functioning WMD labs...and he chose to ignore it.
A detailed CIA report highlights the fact that Iraq had no WMDs and no weapons facilities (available
here if you're interested ) and numerous detailed correspondance between intelligence agencies and the Bush administration in the months leading up to the invasion show that the administration was made known that a good deal of the intelligence they were relying upon was speculation or downright inaccurate, yet the administration used it anyway.
If he was so very wrong--if it was, honestly, a failure in intelligence and there was no effort made to deceive the American public, then why not apologize? Why not admit that mistakes were made, that intelligence was bad, and apologize to the families of all the soldiers who have been killed fighting a war that needn't have been fought?
Pardon me for finding this hard to believe, GAC, but say what you will...
I am.
Would you send your son/daughter/loved one to Iraq to fight? Do you believe the cause is just, and the price is worth the outcome?
Now THIS I would agree with--I, too, think the Iraq war was inevitable, only probably for completely different reasons than you do.
OK, well, let's go invade North Korea. They've admitted to having nuclear weapons, are run my a maniacal dictator who kills his own people, have admitted that they loathe the U.S. and are pursuing missles that could attack us...come on, let's go. (Warning! No oil in North Korea. Interest might be low.)
Fine, go after Bin Laden. I haven't heard anyone not want to do that. I even supported the Afghanistan invasion--although I think the handling of the aftermath has been extremely disappointing (insamuch as we never really cared much to be there in the first place). But Iraq? Yes, I was outraged at the attacks of 9/11, I wanted them to catch who was responsible. But I DIDN'T want to start a war against a nation that had nothing to do with that attack...a war which would kill thousands of people. (I maintain that if Iraq had been a poor, destitute third-world oil-starved nation in Africa, we wouldn't give a crap about them...)
Again, I highly recommend reading Chomsky's book. It's far better explained than I could do. If I have time I will post some quotes here for you. A brief warning, though, if you read him with an open mind it may expand your views on the world.