It does not matter if Iraq has or had WOMD's or not at this point

[Stuie]

Originally posted by rah


THE US of A

I was speaking of personal experience.....

That's funny. Most of my response was personal experience as well.

Oh, well. Glad you found the silver lining.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned


This is the kind of thinking that caused me to think that leaving Saddam in power was the right thing to do in 1991.

My views changed on this after 9/11.

Why? What did Hussein have to do with 9/11? That's right, absolutley nothing. No terrorist attack launched against Americans has evern been aided, abetted, or sponsored by Iraq, nuless you wnat to include th phoney attempt against Bush's life that the Kuwaitis invented.

[Ramo]

Don't mind Ned. In his fantasy world, Saddam had been in bed with al-Qaeda.

[rah]

Originally posted by Stuie


That's funny. Most of my response was personal experience as well.

Oh, well. Glad you found the silver lining.

You still can't comprehend. I didn't find the silver lining, I found those items I listed for myself. God, are you dense. Are you saying that your PERSONAL experiences have exactly matched the country averages, since that's the arguement you used.

People are going to vote based on their personal experiences/perceptions of how they've done over the last 4 years, NOT the country averages.

Jeeze.

[SlowwHand]

WOMD never mattered at any point.
Kicking Hussein's ass was well warranted, and Bush screwed the pooch by even bothering to utter the words, WOMD.

[Agathon]

If people remembered how much support McCain was getting last time as an insurgent candidate, they might want to think again about Dean's prospects.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by rah


You still can't comprehend. I didn't find the silver lining, I found those items I listed for myself. God, are you dense.

Gee, thanks Rah. First time I've been tossed a personal insult by a moderator.

Now let's see what I posted....

Investment income has been down, or flat at best. The total stock market is still down about 2.5% since he came to office, even though the gains last year were impressive. Dividends have been lower than in the 90s.

Ok, nothing "personal" there, but my investment portfolio has not increased all that much in the past four years other than additional input on my part.

Work income has been flat - most companies have stopped giving any sort of raises, claiming poverty. Personally, I was getting raises near 10% of my salary before Bush came to power. Now I'm lucky if my raise matches the cost-of-living.

Oh, personal experience.

Job security? The unemployment rate was close to 4% when Clinton left office. It is currently at 5.9% (as of Nov 2003). Sounds higher to me. From personal experience, I know several people who have lost jobs in the last three years and either continue to be unemployed or have been forced to take lower paying jobs. These are skilled people, too, that should command decent wages.

As for less taxes, yes, on a Federal level. Meanwhile state and local taxes are being increased to compensate for less Federal funding of local programs. Great - give with one hand and take with the other.

Once again, I didn't say it was personal experience, but it is. My local and state taxes have both increased. Am I paying less overall? Yes, but that's because I keep having children at an alarming rate, so I'm adding more deductions.

Have a nice day.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
WOMD never mattered at any point.
Kicking Hussein's ass was well warranted, and Bush screwed the pooch by even bothering to utter the words, WOMD.

Cool. If it's not about WOMD, when do we take out Mugabe?

[Ned]

Well, Che and Ramo, that is what you say now. But consider this:

Gulf I was about Kuwait, not WMD. He had used them against the Iranians and Kurds, but not against us during the war. One could reasonably conclude that he would not use them against us based on this. Besides, Saddam's WMD at that time was thought only to be capable of battlefied use.

When al Qa'ida attacked us on 9/11, it became clear that terrorists were willing and capable of conducting truly massive attacks on the US. (In retrospect, we should have been more concerned about the '93 attack on the WTC.) But the threat that Saddam forshadowed was the following anthrax attack. In '98, when the inspectors left, Saddam had not accounted for tons of anthrax materials, IIRC.

Now, you would argue that even if Saddam had anthrax, that the war against Iraq was not justified because there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam. However, even if Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were natural enemies, it does not mean that they could not unite against a common enemy, the United States, just as United States allied with communist Russia to defeat Nazi Germany. Moreover, Saddam was known to support terrorism abroad and was known to permit terrorist training camps inside Iraq. It does not require a complete absence of intelligence to believe that Saddam could be covertly supporting Osama bin Laden. In fact, with no evidence to the contrary, only a blithering idiot would deny the likelihood of such a covert connection.

So we combine a source of anthrax with a terrorist organization that has shown a willingness and ability to deliver massive attacks on United States, and the calculus on removing Saddam Hussein changes.

[chequita guevara]

So you are saying we should invade France because theoretically they could nuke us? You can't invade other countries on maybes (well, I guess we just did). Should I be able to kill you because you could, conceivably kill me? How would the law treat me?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Well we're talking France right?


Hmmm.... tough call.
j/k

[Ramo]

In fact, with no evidence to the contrary, only a blithering idiot would deny the likelihood of such a covert connection.

Except there is evidence to the contrary:
1. Saddam has never participated in a terrorist attack against the US, and there was no good reason for him to do so before a war started.
2. Saddam's main target for the past decade has been Islamists.

Thus, only a "blithering idiot" would assert the likelyhood of a Saddam-al-Qaeda connection, given that there is no evidence such a connection existed (hell, even the gov't has publicly denied that a connection exists).

[Pekka]

There is one problem though. Now, if we don't find the WMD and go like we don't care about it either, it creates a situation when if the US runs into new problems and conflicts and tries to justify it's possible pre emptive strike, the international scene is likely to be holding on to this WMD thing, and that the word can not be trusted as far as 'we have evidence, 100%' goes.

International help wasn't huge last time, but I think it would be wise to not burn bridges and shut doors in the way.. so we should think about what to do with that argument. I'm not saying US is not to be trusted, all I'm saying is there might be countries using this argument and watering down US plans to get help.

What should be done?

[rah]

Hey stuie, you started it by asking

"What country are you living in?"

I answered. You implied that it's impossible to have had success in THIS COUNTRY since Bush took office. I HAVE and many other people have too. I can't help if it if you haven't. So I assume you won't vote for him. I will be. Thanks for making my point that people will vote how the PERSONALLY have percieved the improvement or FAILURES during the last four years.

[Pekka]

Ned, just a sidenote, everyone has Anthrax, everyone.