pigsteak wrote:[snip]Secondly, if I were drafted, I would defend my country, IN A HEARTBEAT. I would serve for any commander in chief if called upon. I would have went into Bosnia for Clinton, and into Iraq for Bush. Do I expect others to pay with their blood? I don't know...you tell me...if I recall correctly, over 3,000 Americans already DID pay with their blood on 9/11....jesus people, where does it end?
Americans (and people from other countries) did not die on 9/11/01 because of Iraq. The radically secular Ba'athist regeime there "had no operational relationship" with the religious fanatics who are trying to 'purify' Saudi Arabia. The shame is that their deaths were used as a justification for the invasion of Iraq - a radically separate problem.
And for Rhunt, and all the other readers who refuse to follow politics closely, and decide to listen to sound bites on the nightly news, I offer a wager. $100 to any opne who can prove Bush lied about his belief in WMD's before going into Iraq. This whole "Bush lied about WMD's" is such bullshit. Congress demanded a vote be put before them before we invaded, and guess what people, Dems and Republicans overwhelmingly voted FOR the war. If Bush lied to you, then so did Kerry with his vote in Congress. You can't have it both ways. Either Congress and Bush were pulling the wool over your eyes, and lying to you, or either Congress and Bush were making their judgement call based on the Intel. It is F'in hilarious to me how this is GW Bush problem, when Congress approved the measure of war. Why are we not calling all Congressmen and women liars? Liberals, got an answer?
Remember, it was Cheney, not Kerry, who went to CIA headquarters to chew out intel agents for comming up with "the wrong answer" about Iraq and WMDs. It was Bush who pigeon-holed Clark when he explained that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. It was administration officials like Paul Wolfowitz, not Democratic congressmen, who were meeting with Iraqi exile liars who were spewing crap about Iraq's WMD capabilities and links to al Qaeda, then spinning it in Intel reports and on FNC.
It was unfortunate and wrong that so many members of Congress went along with the lies and spin. It is right to remove brutal dictators from power*, but it is wrong to elevate favorable rumors ("this guy knows a cousin of an Iraqi general...") over unfavorable solid intel (e.g. Hans Blix being on the ground in Iraq finding nothing). Democrats in Congress did go along with this. The Bush administration actively 'massaged' the Intel process and drove the public 'drumbeat'. Passively going along with crap - bad. Actively lying and distorting - very, very bad.
Asking wether Bush himself delivered the lies is kind of like asking wether Ken Lay knew the exact details of so-and-so holding company. Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, Enron was a huge scam and the administration knew that they were presenting false and unsupported information about Iraq.
When Bush said, in his Constitutionally required State of the Union Address, that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium (the Niger 'yellowcake' claim), did he "believe" he was lying? Is that your test? Isn't the important test wether the he should have known that he was lying based on the fact that it was directly investigated and proven false? It was a lie, wether he believed it or not.
(* and it is tragic that America has destroyed its moral standing in the world - it will be a long time before the international community helps us to remove any more brutal regimes)
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and I don't think we should disregard them.