Republicans: We Will NOT Tolerate blocking Bush's Nominees, The End of Fillibusters?

[Velociryx]

Ned,

To your first point: Yes, Shrub got the green light from Congress to go to war, and he did so disingenuously, with slim, and largely manufactured "evidence" about WoMD....none of which have been found in Iraq.

Oops.

As the person seated in the land's highest office, and arguably the most powerful position on the planet. With full satellite coverage of the country in question, with access to world class intelligence file, the conclusion here is inescapable. He WANTED a war with Iraq, and was so hell-bent on getting one that he saw no problem with a little creative manufacture of "evidence" to sway the people. This is wrong. It is far, FAR removed from the aforementioned "moral high ground" NO MATTER WHAT KIND OF AZZ that S. Hussein was while in power. There's a right way and a wrong way to go about things. His father's way was a good example of the right way. His was...great example of the wrong way.

As to Kerry's actions...I don't pretend to know, nor are they relevant to my position that the sitting president and his croonies have what I fear is an outright *evil*, poisonous agenda that will do great harm to this country.

As to your second point, the rebublicans have not hid the reasons behind the "nuclear option." They have made their intentions and the reasons behind them quite transparent. Again, this IS NOT democracy in action. This is nothing more than a bald play for power and it goes against EVERYTHING the founding fathers stood for.

I am ashamed on their behalf, for the proposed behavior of men who should know better AND who would, in the same breath, pretend to be upholding democratic ideals.

-=Vel=-

[Ned]

Originally posted by Velociryx
As the person seated in the land's highest office, and arguably the most powerful position on the planet. With full satellite coverage of the country in question, with access to world class intelligence file, the conclusion here is inescapable. He WANTED a war with Iraq, and was so hell-bent on getting one that he saw no problem with a little creative manufacture of "evidence" to sway the people. This is wrong. It is far, FAR removed from the aforementioned "moral high ground" NO MATTER WHAT KIND OF AZZ that S. Hussein was while in power. There's a right way and a wrong way to go about things. His father's way was a good example of the right way. His was...great example of the wrong way.
-=Vel=-

Vel, now come on now. You don't really believe in Michael Moore type propaganda do you?

While is clear that Bush wanted Saddam out of power in any way possible, it was also clear to me that he himself believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction -- particularly after he was assured by the Director of Central intelligence that this issue was a so-called "slam dunk."

As to Bush manufacturing false evidence to convince a reluctant Congress, this entirely disingenuous. The Democrats in Congress were already convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Take a look at the record of the debates concerning the 1998 resolution by Congress calling for Saddam's overthrow by force. The likes of Kerry and others were unambiguous on the issue of whether or not Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and whether Saddam posed a threat to the United States and the world.

[Ned]

Vel, the wanton use of the filibuster by Dems is an abuse. Everyone agrees on that. Everyone. The question is how to fix the problem. The Dems themselves ought to start cooperating on this issue if they want to preserve the filibuster in some form for really important issues.

[Velociryx]

Ned,

It's not Michael Moore propaganda...THE SIMPLE FACT IS that there HAVE BEEN...I repeat....HAVE BEEN no wepons of mass destruction found!

None!

Amazing, given the "slam dunk" nature of the "evidence," wouldn't you agree?

Given that compelling "evidence" you would have thought we coulda turned up at least a couple vials of Antrax or something.

After all, that was THE REASON our President gave us for going to war. That was the "hook" used to sell the whole shebang.

Where are they?

That they have never been found makes it fairly clear that something fishy's going on here.

Given that Bush and Co were on point, pushing the WoMD angle for everything it's worth, it isn't too much of a stretch to imagine a little bit of "creative fudging" to help make their case.

Without WoMD, we have no cause for war with Iraq.

We DO have a cause for war with the Saudis, given that most of the 9/11 guys came from there, but then, that hits a little too close to home for Shrub and Co, so we can't very well do THAT, can we?

So....we go to war with a nation without just cause (or rather, for a purely fictional cause), and alienate most of our allies in the process.

This is hardly what I would term "astute foriegn policy"

Would you?

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Ned, the FIX the filabuster. The so-called "Nuclear Option" is exactly what the Repubs said it is. A power play specifically designed to prevent the Dems from blocking judicial appointments.

-=Vel=-

[notyoueither]

Weren't there a whole lot of people who were certain that Saddam had WMDs? I mean people who were/are paid to know about these things?

[Velociryx]

With the kind of sat-survellience we have world wide, I seriously doubt that a cockroach could have crawled out of Saddam's butt without us knowing about it. If they were there, then the folks who are paid to know such things would have KNOWN....absolutely KNOWN...I totally agree, NYE.

The nation got suckered by a lie. A lie fronted to push us into an inappropriate war. Wrong way to do business. I believed it too, and was a big time supporter of the war, based on the WoMD angle.

Now that it has proved to be a lie, my position has changed dramatically. I did not believe our President would lie to us. I was wrong. Now that our troops are there, I support them, and wish them a safe and speedy return.

Wrong target. Let's finish up and bring them home.

-=Vel=-

[notyoueither]

I think you vastly over-rate the value of your satellite systems. It doesn't take a nuclear reactor to create biological and chemical weapons.

[Velociryx]

Perhaps not, however, if our highly skilled intel community cannot tell the difference between a milk factory and a chemical weapons plant....

-=Vel=-

[notyoueither]

Exactly. Then add to it that Saddam acted as if he had things he shouldn't have had and... you have a tragi-comedy that will make excellent reading in 50 years when something closely resembling the truth can be sorted out.

[Drachasor]

What people forget is that the intel community had much better access to information on Saddam's personality. They accurately identified that Saddam was *not* an immediate threat to the U.S., and indeed wasn't going to be a threat unless all the sanctions were dropped. Being a dictator requires a heavy amount of self-preservation, and Saddam wasn't about to sacrifice that. Similarly, Saddam would naturally claim he had WMDs even if he didn't, as part of maintaining his image.

-Drachasor

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Ned
Vel, the wanton use of the filibuster by Dems is an abuse. Everyone agrees on that. Everyone.

I don't. Its called checks and balances.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Drachasor
What people forget is that the intel community had much better access to information on Saddam's personality. They accurately identified that Saddam was *not* an immediate threat to the U.S., and indeed wasn't going to be a threat unless all the sanctions were dropped. Being a dictator requires a heavy amount of self-preservation, and Saddam wasn't about to sacrifice that. Similarly, Saddam would naturally claim he had WMDs even if he didn't, as part of maintaining his image.

-Drachasor

I'd always thought the threat was supposed to be to the region, not to the US itself.

Also, there were the 'small' matters of the likelihood of sanctions being lifted (unlikely), or ignored (more likely) as well as the man sending large cheques to families of homicide bombers in Palestine and making a big media spectacle of it in the aftermath of 9/11. I'd have to swear he thought he could taunt the American administration and people indefinitely and get away with it.

At any rate, I accept that Bush looked for reasons to go into Iraq to end the dancing of the preceding number of years. I also accept that some of those reasons turned out to not be well founded in retrospect, because they were seen as accurate at the time. In short, I have no problem with Saddam being gone and that one of the reasons to get rid of him came up short.

Incidently, I should say that I do not agree with those who say that going into Iraq will serve as a precedent for preemptive invasions being acceptable elsewhere. No more so than France invading Germany in 1937 would have been a similar precedent. In short, it was not preemptive, it was enforcing terms of peace that Saddam flaunted.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'd always thought the threat was supposed to be to the region, not to the US itself.

Not according to what Bush said.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Ned,

It's not Michael Moore propaganda...THE SIMPLE FACT IS that there HAVE BEEN...I repeat....HAVE BEEN no wepons of mass destruction found!

None!

Amazing, given the "slam dunk" nature of the "evidence," wouldn't you agree?

Given that compelling "evidence" you would have thought we coulda turned up at least a couple vials of Antrax or something.

After all, that was THE REASON our President gave us for going to war. That was the "hook" used to sell the whole shebang.

Where are they?

That they have never been found makes it fairly clear that something fishy's going on here.

Given that Bush and Co were on point, pushing the WoMD angle for everything it's worth, it isn't too much of a stretch to imagine a little bit of "creative fudging" to help make their case.

Without WoMD, we have no cause for war with Iraq.

We DO have a cause for war with the Saudis, given that most of the 9/11 guys came from there, but then, that hits a little too close to home for Shrub and Co, so we can't very well do THAT, can we?

So....we go to war with a nation without just cause (or rather, for a purely fictional cause), and alienate most of our allies in the process.

This is hardly what I would term "astute foriegn policy"

Would you?

-=Vel=-

The fact that we do not find WMD's in Iraq proves nothing about George Bush's state of mind prior to war. To believe your position, we must assume the George Bush did not know whether or not there were WMD's in Iraq when he determined to invade Iraq for purposes we can only guess at, manufactured evidence of WMD's to support his intention, and then invaded. This theory requires two unsupported leaps of imagination: 1) Bush did not know whether there were WMD's in Iraq and in fact probably knew that there were none; and 2) Bush determined to invade Iraq for purposes other than disarming Saddam. Actually point 2 falls away if point 1 is false because if Bush truly believed that there were WMD's in Iraq, and his purpose for invading with what he said it was.

As I said before, the fact that we did not find WMD's in Iraq proves nothing about George Bush's state of mind. There has to be some evidence that Bush did not believe in their existence. But the evidence that we do have is unambiguous in the other direction. We have the statement by George Tenet that he advised George Bush that there were in fact WMD's in Iraq.

So on the one hand we have and unrebutted statement by the Director of Central Intelligence. On the other hand, we have the unsupported allegations of conspiracy theorists like Michael Moore.

Is my logic faulty here at all? Am I missing something? If so, please demonstrate where the logic fails or where the evidence fails.