At 04:23 PM 1/13/2004 EST [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>My real problem with any attempt to defend the fact that Bush came into
>office determined to get rid of Saddam by saying the reason was to bring
about
>regime change, save the people from Iraq, and be nicey was,
The only evidence for this comes from one disgruntled employee.
Certainly there is nothing in the primary record of Bush's Presidency from
1/2001 to 9/2001 to indicate that this is ture.
>during the 2000
>campaign, Bush repeatedly derided the very idea of "nation-building" and
>intervention anywhere except for cold calculated national interest. Now,
all of a sudden,
>he's in office and he's suddenly interested in nation building? Come on.
Actually, many commentators have noted that, if anything, the Bush
Administration has not shown nearly enough interest in nation-building in
Iraq, even after deciding to go to war. Many commentators who strongly
supported the war have criticized what they feel is an apparent lack of
preparation in nation-building by the Bush Administration.
>He wanted to get rid of Saddam because he wanted to do something his father
>couldn't, and he wanted to project US power.
Which is why Bush waited eight months to even mention this.....
> But he needed a pretext because he
>knew he never could get American support for a naked, causeless invasion.
>Saddam Hussein is a monster, and I'm glad he's gone, but there are
monsters in
>China and Syria and North Korea and Cuba and Libya - why don't we go after
them?
China - Because the US doesn't want to take on a nation of 1 *billion* people?
Syria - Because Bashar Assad has hardly the same track record as Hussein,
nor does he have the same WMD ambitions as Hussein, nor does he have the UN
resolutions that authorized "all necessary means" against Iraq.
DPRK - Because the United States is smart enough to not attack countries
with nuclear weapons.
Cuba - Because Castro's miserable track record is nowheres near Hussein's
levels of oppression.
Libya - We now know it was because Libya was prepared to accept a
diplomatic solution to the problem.
>North Korea is far more dangerous to us than Iraq, and Cuba is 90 miles off
>our coast and a chip-shot if we really really wanted to take Castro out.
Can I quote you as favoring invading the nuclear-armed DPRK? If not, why
are you propounding these straw men? Do you feel that these straw men
support your argument?
>You cannot convince me that George W. Bush had any reason to go into Iraq
>other than that he simply wanted to.
Then why are you on a discussion list if there is no evidence that can
convince you? Are you only here to convince me?
>He came into office determined to get
>Saddam, and he was willing to say anything it would take to bring that
about. He had
>to wait until he could find a pretext he could present as plausible, and he
>had to sex up the intelligence even to get WMD to work. But this was not a
>humanitarian invasion to save the people of Iraq - otherwise, why did he
have to
>wait two years? Why did he completely dismiss the very value of nation
building
>in 2000?
He waited two years to build domestic and international support for the war.
He made the decision to invade because there were about 10 very good
reasons to invade Iraq, the existence of even five of which would have been
sufficient strategic reason to ivnade.
He dismissed the value of nation-building in 2000 because he didn't know
then what he knows now, because it played well politically, and because
9/11 changed the world. If terrorists could accomplish that level of
destruction with aircraft - imagine what they could achieve with nuclear
weapons. And given the success of our intelligence services in keeping
track of our enemies' nuclear weapons programs, how could we really be sure
of what Saddam was hiding from the UN inspectors (and he clearly appeared
to be hiding something.)
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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