An Anniversary...

[bullypulpit]

Iraqis no longer have a ruthless dictator governing them.

Iraqis no longer have a government that supports terrorism.

What exactly is wrong with that?

No...they have a vicious internecine struggle between Sunnis and Shi'ias...They have a government that's cozying up to Iran...

[bullypulpit]

i would argue they are living no worse than the israelis or the northern irish or the basques or the monks of tibet.....plus they have oil money.....

Well, the Troubles are pretty much resolved, and even at their worst, there weren't daily car bomb, suicide bomb and IED attacks. The same with the Basques and the Tibetans, and even Israel.

[bullypulpit]

It's more violent in downtown major world cities than in Iraq

You are either ignorant or delusional. But I'm betting on a bit of both.

[diuretic]

i would argue they are living no worse than the israelis or the northern irish or the basques or the monks of tibet.....plus they have oil money.....

Heck where do I start? Israel - surrounded by hostile states that know Israel has the power to take them off the map. The problems they have with internal security relates primarily to the Palestinians. Not a good position but better than Iraqis in general. Northern Irish - pretty quiet now but even at its worse NI wasn't a dysfunctional society such as Iraq. The Basques are the ones who are, through ETA, attacking Spanish citizens, again not living in the situation of the average Iraqi. Tibetans - doing it tough at the moment due to their decision to rise against their Chinese occupiers, but again, nothing like the average Iraqi is facing.

Oil money? Again, the average Iraqi isn't seeing its benefits, if it's there at all.

[diuretic]

It's more violent in downtown major world cities than in Iraq

Would you care to nominate some?

[diuretic]

got it...so you would prefer saddam was still in power and we were fighting all the rag heads in the mountains of afganistan....worked out well for the russians.....and the english.....good idea......i hear that is what o'hillary wants to do....move the war from the desert to the mountains.....

Are you arguing that Saddam had to be taken out because he was the easier target?

[Classact]

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of "Shock and Awe"...The beginning of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Outside of Chimpy McPresident's delusional speech and Darth Cheney's contemptuous dismissal of the 2/3 of Americans who now understand the war was a mistake, not much was heard about it in the media.

One would think the administration lap dogs...you know, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage-Weiner, Glen Beck, and the rest of the right wing media whores would have been sharing in the President's pronouncements of progress and imminent victory in Iraq. Instead, there was silence. Even the Administration's propaganda arm, FOX Noise, did little more than cover Bush's speech.

Perhaps they remained silent so as not to remind America of just what the invasion and occupation of Iraq has bought "We, the People...". Let's look at it, shall we?

President Bush answered all the questions in his speech unlike Obama in his speech where he left so many questions unanswered.

-Nearly 4000 US service men and women dead

-Some 23,000 (low estimate) US service men and women wounded and maimed for life

There are always casualties in war. Look into your magic ball and estimate how many casualties there would have been if we had done nothing.

-Nearly $5 trillion spent, with more to come

President Bush addressed this bogus number in the speech.

-Oil at $110bbl

Nothing to do with Iraq. Perhaps more to do with supply and demand.

-Massive profits for war profiteers

Perhaps the federal government should invest in the companies that make massive profits and use the profits to fund welfare programs?

-Levels of foreign debt which undermine US security

Would you start a war with someone that owed you money that you know has the ability to pay you back? Or, would you be less likely to go to war knowing to do so could cause the loss of the money owed?

And this is but a very truncated list. Sure Saddam was toppled...Sure the Iraqi people were liberated...But those were not the reasons we were given for the invasion. We were told, by President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and the rest of the administration, that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the US and its allies in the form of a fully reconstituted and operational WMD program. To date, no significant stockpiles or evidence of a reconstituted WMD program have been found.

Happy anniversary.

Saddam had WMD's according to the UN Security Council and his own accounting... Saddam provided a list of WMD's to the UN that he agreed to destroy with UN inspectors witnessing destruction... President Bush asked him to send the scientists and their extended families to a third neutral country to be interviewed by UN inspectors. Why, because there were 250 tons of deadly WMD's missing from Saddam's list... one ounce of similar WMD's killed several US Postal workers and shut down the Senate... It was Saddam's list and it had 250 tons missing from the list... Saddam said I'd rather go to war than send the scientists out against their will. President Bush didn't blink... and, you would have preferred Bush go on his knees and smile as he ate Saddam's shit or in the case of a liberal gave him head.

[theHawk]

And this is but a very truncated list. Sure Saddam was toppled...Sure the Iraqi people were liberated...But those were not the reasons we were given for the invasion. We were told, by President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and the rest of the administration, that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the US and its allies in the form of a fully reconstituted and operational WMD program. To date, no significant stockpiles or evidence of a reconstituted WMD program have been found.

Once again we seem to have liberals rewriting history. The mission at the begining of the war was name Operation Iraqi Freedom. The mission statement was there on day one. The mission did not "change" after a few months like liberals such as yourself like to profess.
Here they are -

The military objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom consist of first, ending the regime of Saddam Hussein. Second, to identify, isolate and eliminate, Iraq's weapons of mass destruciton. Third, to search for, to capture and to drive out terrorists from the country. Fourth, to collect intelligence related to terrorist networks. Fifth, to collect such intelligence as is related to the global network of illicit weapons of mass destruction. Sixth, to end sanctions and to immediately deliver humanitarian support to the displaced and to many needed citizens. Seventh, to secure Iraq's oil fields and resources, which belong to the Iraqi people. Finally, to help the Iraqi people create conditions for a transition to a representative self-government

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...qi_freedom.htm

Also, it wasn't just Bush saying Saddam had WMD and needed to be ousted. Clinton had said the same thing. In fact many Dems said it -

We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." - Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002


"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1000604/posts


Facts are stubborn things eh Bully?