Ted Kennedy, Still an embarresment to the country even in death

PostmodernProphet said:
uh, no.....it was intended, as it has always been intended historically, to give the president the authority to take extended military action.....
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I am not disputing that, what I'm saying is that many wanted it to be used as a big stick to ensure Iraqi compliance with the weapon's inspectors. Bush of course wanted to fulfill the PNAC agenda and he was handed that on a plate. Oh and the war was still illegal under international law.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
what I'm saying is that many wanted it to be used as a big stick to ensure Iraqi compliance with the weapon's inspectors.
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perhaps that's the excuse that some Democrats have used to try to rationalize their vote with their constituents......nobody is buying it though, except perhaps some guy from Britain who hasn't got a clue about American history.....
 
PostmodernProphet said:
Bush made the decision, as approved by a majority of Congress..........
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I don't even know what that phrase means. Bush made the decision, but only after Congress made the decision?

No, PMP. Nothing Congress did compelled a decision to invade. Bush MADE THE DECISION.

You sound like a typical dopey apologist. Bush didn't make the decision with Congress. He made it on his own - he's a big boy.
 
Onceler said:
Dick Armey has stated that, as well.
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Look like Cheney fed him a load of bullshit to get his vote, no doubt that was repeated over and over.

In 2006, Michael Isikoff's book Hubris included Armey as an on-the-record source, who said he was initially reluctant to support the Bush administration's call for war with Iraq, and that he had warned President George W. Bush that such a war might be a "quagmire". Armey said that the intelligence presented to him in support of the war appeared questionable, but he gave Bush the benefit of the doubt.

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman, former Vice President Dick Cheney told Armey that Saddam Hussein's family had direct ties to Al-Qaeda and that Saddam was developing miniature nuclear weapons. Armey then voted for the Iraq War, but after it became clear this was not true, stated that he "deserved better than to be bullshitted by the Vice President."[SUP][13][/SUP] Robert Draper's Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush recounts a conversation in late summer 2002 between Armey and Cheney. Armey insisted that American forces would get "mired down" in Iraq if they invaded, but Cheney offered this assurance: "They're going to welcome us. It'll be like the American army going through the streets of Paris. They're sitting there ready to form a new government. The people will be so happy with their freedoms that we'll probably back ourselves out of there within a month or two."[SUP][14][/SUP]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Iraq_War
 
PostmodernProphet said:
perhaps that's the excuse that some Democrats have used to try to rationalize their vote with their constituents......nobody is buying it though, except perhaps some guy from Britain who hasn't got a clue about American history.....
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You should change your name to Patronising Mendacious Prophet, it's far more apt.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
so your defense is that Democrats are so dense they didn't realize what their vote meant, despite hundreds of years of history to look at?......I expect every Congressman knows what war powers acts are for......
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No. My position is that both Dems and Repubs voted based on faulty information, and that the real facts were deliberately downplayed or withheld in order to justify the invasion. And, that the Repubs were far more open to accepting the info without question, based on the total number of their votes.
 
I don't give Dems a pass; the ones who voted yes were cowards & should have known better than to trust Bush. The vote itself was framed around patriotism, and no one wanted to be seen a traitor. They rationalized that they were forcing Saddam's hand on inspections, but most knew the truth.

But this whole idea that Bush invaded "as Congress instructed him to do" or whatever is such BS connie con history revision. Bush made the decision to use ground troops for a full-scale invasion on his own - there was no consulting w/ Congress. There was nothing compelling him to do so from Congress.

If anything, Bush made the decision with PNAC; but he still made the final call, and allowed himself to be used as their puppet.
 
bravo said:
No one ever claimed Bush was "distrustful" of Mr. Blix.....before or after his assessment of WMD in Iraq....

Bush just choose to put more trust into our own and our allys intelligence conclusions.......
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You wrote: "Hans Blix is a Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party.....and hardly interested in what policy is in the interest of the United States."

Truer words, etc. Blix wasn't supposed to be tilted to the US. He was supposed to report on the facts alone, and none of what he reported showed that Iraq was either a present or continuing threat to the US.

Then you wrote: "Bush just choose to put more trust into our own and our allys intelligence conclusions....."

Clearly he did NOT put more trust into those conclusions because he disregarded the parts that questioned, dissented, or argued against the rationale for war. To use a well-known quote, "the intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy..."
 
bravo said:
There were no allys criticizing Bush ... there were individuals from foreign countries that disagreed.....
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Then there was no reason to characterize all the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", huh.

"Worldwide, the war and occupation have been officially condemned by 54 countries and the heads of many major religions. Popular anti-war feeling is strong in these and other countries, including the US' allies in the conflict, and many have experienced huge protests totalling millions of participants."

Thats like characterizing a criticism from Harry Reid the individial, as a criticism from the US Senate....

And have you EVER EVER EVER seen any US President release raw TOP SECRET intelligence for public consumption....EVER ???
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The NIE report was approved for release in April 2004 and when it was, all the reasons against the invasion were redacted and only the justifications remained.

If you think any president would or should, you're not thinking clearly.....it just ain't gonna happen....EVER......

You can accuse Bush of manipulating intelligence data a day long .... it won't make it so....
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I'm accusing him because the facts proved it, according to all post-war reports. I'm accusing him of disregarding info that didn't fit his preconceptions, and he got that info before going to war. It's dishonest to take a country to war based on lies or as you might put it, faulty intel. If pre-war reports laid out all the pros and cons, it's incumbent on the president to consider every bit of the information before making a decision, not just the info that supports his POV.

Politicians are accused of thousands of things in a never ending stream.....the accusations don't make it so.....next you'll be telling me Clinton was a rapist and Hillary killed Vince Foster because someone made an accusation....
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Yes, and many of those accusations had their day in court, so to speak, so why wouldn't you want the same for a war?

Bush didn't write the Oct. NIE no matter how many accusations there are....
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I didn't say he wrote it. I said he disregarded the info that didn't conform to his desire to go to war.
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National Intelligence Estimate....October 2002

Six agencies of the US Intelligence Community (15 agencies), Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction (U.S. CIA, NIE: National Intelligence Estimate, October 1 2002, 90 pages), secret, authorship unknown, personal responsibility, George Tenet (Director of Central intelligence), these excerpts released July 18 2003 in an off-the-record White House press briefing by a “senior administration official” who subsequently identified himself on-the-record (July 22) as Dan Bartlett, White House Director of Communications. –CJHjr
-----------------------------------------
Confidence Levels for Selected Key Judgments in This Estimate
High Confidence:

• Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.

• We are not detecting portions of these weapons programs.

• Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles.

• Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once if acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material.
Moderate Confidence:

• Iraq does not yet have a nuclear weapon or sufficient material to make one but is likely to have a weapon by 2007 to 2009. (See INR alternative view, page 84).
Low Confidence:

• When Saddam would use weapons of mass destruction.

• Whether Saddam would engage in clandestine attacks against the US Homeland.

• Whether in desperation Saddam would share chemical or biological weapons with al-Qa'ida.


http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/nie-iraq-wmd.htm
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I already read and linked to the actual report. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB129/nie.pdf

Only 14 out of 93 pages contained text, the rest were whited out. Not surprisingly, the 14 pages showed only info that was used to justify the invasion. What I don't understand is why you and the rest of the bush/war apologists aren't outraged that 4000+ troops and countless civilians lost their lives based on faulty and incomplete information.
 
Onceler said:
They rationalized that they were forcing Saddam's hand on inspections, but most knew the truth.

But this whole idea that Bush invaded "as Congress instructed him to do" or whatever is such BS connie con history revision.
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oh, isn't that cute.....Onceler has just admitted what we've been trying to explain to him and now he's pretending it was his idea instead of ours.....dumbfuck......
 
PostmodernProphet said:
yes you do....it's just more convenient for you to lie about it....
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No - I really don't. You're echoing what bravo was trying to portray before - somehow, the decision to invade was made at the time of the vote, and Bush was just swept along w/ history. It's complete revisionism.

It's also a good time to point out that, had Iraq been a raging success and something you were proud of, there would be no way you & bravs would be in this rush to give Dems in Congress "credit."
 
PostmodernProphet said:
oh, isn't that cute.....Onceler has just admitted what we've been trying to explain to him and now he's pretending it was his idea instead of ours.....dumbfuck......
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What you've been trying to explain to me? You called me a fool, and Alias said I had BDS, for saying that Bush made the decision to invade.

You're really gone, PMP. Apologism will do that to you.
 
christiefan915 said:
The NIE report was approved for release in April 2004 and when it was, all the reasons against the invasion were redacted and only the justifications remained.

The NIE approved for release was for public consumption....it WAS NOT the report that decisions were based on by either the President or the Congress....

I'm accusing him because the facts proved it, according to all post-war reports. I'm accusing him of disregarding info that didn't fit his preconceptions, and he got that info before going to war. It's dishonest to take a country to war based on lies or as you might put it, faulty intel. If pre-war reports laid out all the pros and cons, it's incumbent on the president to consider every bit of the information before making a decision, not just the info that supports his POV.

I say your assumption that Bush "disregarded" portions of the intell is just your assumption, your opinion....a product of BDS.....all conjecture on your part.

I say Bush considered every bit of intell available, along with the conclusions of the intelligence agency's , and intell from allies and foreign governments, and after consulting with his advisers in his administration, before making his determination on how to proceed....
Just as I'm sure Obama did before committing US military forces to Iraq.

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Only 14 out of 93 pages contained text, the rest were whited out. Not surprisingly, the 14 pages showed only info that was used to justify the invasion. What I don't understand is why you and the rest of the bush/war apologists aren't outraged that 4000+ troops and countless civilians lost their lives based on faulty and incomplete information.
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14 out of 93 contained text ?....Like I explained before....you will never see any US President release raw TOP SECRET intelligence for public consumption....
If you think any president would or should, you're not thinking clearly.....it just ain't gonna happen.

School is dismissed
 
bravo said:
14 out of 93 contained text ?....Like I explained before....you will never see any US President release raw TOP SECRET intelligence for public consumption....
If you think any president would or should, you're not thinking clearly.....it just ain't gonna happen.

School is dismissed
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What Bush and co. had bore little relation to the bowdlerised version that was submitted for public consumption.
 
"I say Bush considered every bit of intell available, along with the conclusions of the intelligence agency's , and intell from allies and foreign governments, and after consulting with his advisers in his administration, before making his determination on how to proceed....
Just as I'm sure Obama did before committing US military forces to Iraq. "

These are all incorrect assumptions. By many accounts now - including Paul O'Neil, Colin Powell's office, Richard Armitage, British intelligence, etc. - the intel that they used was cherrypicked and fixed around a policy that they decided on long before invasion. The idea was to just get supporting evidence, and build a case for war. There is no disputing that.

Beyond that, one of the interesting things about the decision to invade itself is that there were no high-level meetings to discuss just the basic concept of whether it was a good idea or not. There were almost no formal discussions on it at all, until the actual meeting to move forward w/ invasion.
 
Onceler said:
What you've been trying to explain to me? You called me a fool, and Alias said I had BDS, for saying that Bush made the decision to invade.

You're really gone, PMP. Apologism will do that to you.
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of course I called you a fool.....for denying that Congress authorized it and knowingly......this goes all the way back to my first post where I commented that you were thinking they authorized him to bake a cake instead of authorizing him to take military action.......your argument was stupid five pages ago, it's still stupid.....
 
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