Bush 'planned Iraq war pre-9/11'

[oedo]

Originally posted by Agathon
One day it might come out that Bush knew all about 9/11 and let it happen so as to insure his re-election.

one must be a complete fool believing that Bush had nothing to do with the 911 attacks.
with "Go find me a way to do this.", the hope for "catastrophic and catalyzing event- like a new Pearl Harbour" documented in the PNAC, the fact that 911 was preventable and shoud have been prevented (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in589137.shtml) and the fact the the White House id doing everything to prevent any serious investigation...

how can there be any doubt left?

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Agathon


They seem to have said or implied the following sequentially over the last year and a half.

1. The people who believe in the PNAC stuff are conspiracy whackos.

2. This is a war about enforcing UN resolutions!

3. (after acting in defiance of the UN). This is about ridding Iraq of WMDs!

4. (no WMDS) After 9/11 this is about protecting America from terrorists!!

5. (no connection between Al Quaeda and Sadddam). This is about installing democracy to prevent terrorism!!!!

Then O'Neill spills the beans. The only plan on the table when Bush took over was the PNAC one or one of its variants - and that was when all this crap started - before 9/11 and before the war on terror.

Bush is a cretin because his excuses have fallen apart again.

Chalk up another win for the left.

A bitter win then with so many dead and a world institution made a fool of. I suppose the left can celebrate this victory.

Bush probably had as much a role in the 9/11 attacks as Saddam did. That's why the left argues that he did, just like the right argued that Saddam did.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by oedo

one must be a complete fool believing that Bush had nothing to do with the 911 attacks.
with "Go find me a way to do this.", the hope for "catastrophic and catalyzing event- like a new Pearl Harbour" documented in the PNAC, the fact that 911 was preventable and shoud have been prevented (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in589137.shtml) and the fact the the White House id doing everything to prevent any serious investigation...

how can there be any doubt left?

Look, I know about all that stuff and I think Bush is a worthless sack of ****, but I balk at pinning that on him, especially since there is no real evidence of a link.

On the other hand, if it did come out I'd buy a ticket to Washington to join the lynch mob.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by DaShi

A bitter win then with so many dead and a world institution made a fool of. I suppose the left can celebrate this victory.

Well, add to that the largest protest movement in history and an increasing push among ordinary citizens for international laws with teeth and more representative democracy and I don't think it's so bad.

I can't think of any other event which has made people "think globally".

What's even more encouraging is the links with the Seattle movement as people realize that it all boils down to effective representative democracy vs. special interests.

[DaShi]

Perhaps, I don't live in the US anymore, so I don't see it. I certainly don't see it in China.

Maybe Bush's **** ups will be the kick in the ass that most Americans need. But with the special interests firmly in power, and Americans concerned more about where their next paycheck is coming from, I don't think it is enough.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by DaShi
Perhaps, I don't live in the US anymore, so I don't see it. I certainly don't see it in China.

Maybe Bush's **** ups will be the kick in the ass that most Americans need. But with the special interests firmly in power, and Americans concerned more about where their next paycheck is coming from, I don't think it is enough.

I don't think it's them. The change will be elsewhere. The US has a lot of diplomatic clout, but recent events are making other countries think twice. It's like when all the little kids group together to protect themselves from the big kid. If Britain starts to lurch the other way, which is not out of the question given Bliar's disastrous performances recently, then the US will lose influence.

Another one to watch is Korea. The Koreans are already pissed off with Bush's attitude toward the North and may well increase their own independent diplomatic efforts which promise better returns.

[Whaleboy]

I don't think this thread is telling us anything new. Its an open secret at the best of times that the USA had designs on Iraq since Gulf War I, and the PNAC were looking for "a new Pearl Harbour" to roll our US influence abroad so this is not a surprise.

[oedo]

Originally posted by Agathon
Look, I know about all that stuff and I think Bush is a worthless sack of ****, but I balk at pinning that on him, especially since there is no real evidence of a link.

if we use the same standards on them as they use on every Guantanamo prisoneer, then we could easily call the existence of their previous knowledge as proven.

and as long as the White House and Pentagon are the ones who may decide what´s going to be investigated about 911 and what not, there will hardly any evidence beyond any doubt rise up. however, there are countless of suspicious circumstances against them. so even if they would turn out "innocent", investigating their possible preknowledges and intentions would be more than just reasonable.

see, I would feel much better, if I could be at least somewhat certain that the White House was not involvend in the 911 plannings at all and can´t be blamed for the attacks.

[oedo]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
I don't think this thread is telling us anything new. Its an open secret at the best of times that the USA had designs on Iraq since Gulf War I, and the PNAC were looking for "a new Pearl Harbour" to roll our US influence abroad so this is not a surprise.

truly, the initial article doesn´t teach us anything new. but by the fact that a former White House member comes out with all that stuff, which only liberals and lefties spoke out before, the whole issue gains a new quality.

[DinoDoc]

I love being right.

[GePap]

Originally posted by SpencerH


I stopped using the news as sources of info (other than the event itself although even that can be questionable) in the early 80's. It was amazing to watch the reporting - counter reporting - spin - counterspin on events where I knew what had happened (since I had access to other sources). Nothing is objective. The only reason to read the news is to gauge what others are thinking about the event and usually you can predict what they will say anyway.

And you think that anyone is different, includng individuals? A lot of times I can guess how you will spin, counterspin things, how your natural biases will affect what you say: do you think this is different from what I do? or his advisors would do?

The porblem is that by limiting himself to a small number of sources that have shared biases the president simply does not get to see any side other than that his advisors hold. If Kennedy had been like this in 1962 we would have invaded Cuba and started WW3.

You can only make well informed decisions if you have all sides and all arguements: this is a mand stating he only get one side, and that is good enough for him..well, fine for him, but not for the Precidency.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


The evidence cited by Bush was really thin: (1) a Czech intelligence officer claims he twice saw one of the hijackers meeting with one of Saddam's spy masters in Prague; (2) there was an al Qaeda training camp in the Kurdish-controlled part of Iraq; and (3) an al Qaeda official from the training camp got sick and was treated in a Bagdad hospital and was not turned over to the Americans when we demanded him.

Yep, that's grounds for war.

Zkribbler, again the question is to you is whether this evidence is false, because you stated that Bush's claim that there was a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein was false.

Also, to be fair to Bush, he cited Saddam's long support the terrorism and his support of suicide bombings in Israel by paying $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers.

[Ned]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Ned, your missing my point. Rumsfeld has not won two conflicts. In both conflicts after the major field operations against organized forces were won, we did not have sufficient occupation forces - MP's, civilian liason, rebuilding, etc. to win the peace. We do not have the forces to make sure that western style individual rights democracy will occur in either country. In fact, it looks extremely likely in both cases that Sharia will be ensconced in law, and since in both countries you have groups with definitive differences in what exactly constitutes "kosher" Sharia (I just couldn't resist) the outlook for these so-called democracies loore like Cromwell's England.

In fact, and this goes back to the 80's, and both Mssrs. Gore and Gingritch buy into this one as well as Clinton and the Republican leadership, our contracting out suppport services has made life miserable for our GI's in Iraq, and made rebuilding a much larger mess than Germany or Japan. It seems that the employees of civilian contractors don't like to get shot at (low wage, no life insurance, low or no benefits, well duh), so the work is being done on a piecemeal basis, and often not being done nearly as fast as the older army support services did. It's why we've had soldiers in Iraq without running water or showers for almost a year, and substandard food. Remember, you get what you pay for.

Ned, did you go through the slide show? Go through that link. We can start a thread on the reoganization, instead of half-hijacking this one. Of course the entire issue of Iraq, Bush, terrorism, Rumsfeld et al is complex, and is interconnected, which is why we keep returning to all these interrelated issues.

No, I could not access the link.

Shawn, it seems that your criticism of Rumsfeld is centered on the lack of size of US forces. We seem to have a adequate force to win wars but not too carryout subsequent operations without tying down too much of our combat power. We also seem to want to preserve all available troops for combat operations by contracting out other services that once we performed by the Army.

The question then is, how did we get to this size of an army? Was the Rumsfeld or was it -- Clinton?

[KrazyHorse]

Who is overextending? BushII or Clinton?

Maybe Clinton didn't expect his successor to fight a half-dozen wars at once.

[KrazyHorse]

Remember the Peace Dividend? Everybody wanted a cut in US military spending, including the American taxpayer.