The Iraq War Was a Mistake!

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

After more than 3 years of beating my head against a brick wall with pinheads over Iraq, I have objectively considered everything, and have determined that the Iraq War was, indeed, a mistake. Many of you will be so giddy over this statement, you will not even bother to read the rest of the post, and that is fine, go ahead and stick my words in your sig lines and carry on with your mission of disrespecting and ridiculing people who disagree with you.

I believe Iraq was a mistake, but not because of all the reasons spewed by pinhead haters of president Bush. Those arguments have all been addressed, and there simply was no mistake made in the objectives or principles of the war, they were completely well-founded, and based in reasoned objectivity and logical justification.

The "mistake" was, to think that America could intelligently understand the principles and objectives, and would have the resolve to complete the mission, once it had been embarked upon. To compound this mistake, there was no one in the Administration capable of effectively articulating these principles and objectives to the media and the people or explain the importance of completing them. Because of this miscalculation, and inability to adjust, the Administration found itself quickly on its heels, trying to make half-assed attempts to defensively explain itself, and do battle with the formidable liberal spin machine.

Being that Bush is a Bush, just as his father ignored the polls leading up to his re-election, Dubya ignored the growing sentiment against the war, and underestimated the cumulative effect it would eventually have. For months on end, liberals and democrats would lob criticism after criticism at the president, and the administration followed the elder Bush's pattern of ignoring them, not responding, not offering a counter point, and allowed the points to stand without challenge. Regardless of whether the detractors made any valid point, it was the perception of the ignorant masses, which mattered. Again, to compound this mistake, Bush couldn't articulate his way through wet toilet paper, and had no chance of making a "Clinton Comeback" in this political game.

The first mistake Bush made, was listening to Colin Powell on Iraq, in attempting to garner UN blessings for the war. He should have used the presidential authority Bill Clinton used in '98 to bomb Saddam, and never even brought it to the UN. IF, all of the administrations reasons and justifications were legitimate, there is no requirement for UN approval, he is within his executive powers to take whatever action necessary to defend the security of the United States, it's been done countless times in US history, and is pretty much the whole reason we elect a "president" ...to preside over these kind of urgent and key decisions that have to be made at a moments notice. Otherwise, we could allow Congressional vote on anything we ever do as a nation.

The next mistake was in not formally declaring war. This should have been done on September 14, 2001. The declaration of war should have been voted on by Congress, against all Radical Islamist Terror Organizations in general. It would have defined War on "Terror" in a clear and concise manner, and this would have led to a completely different understanding of what we are doing and who we are at war with. In establishing this, it could have played an important role for justification of taking military action in Iraq, because regardless of what pinhead propagandist tell you, there certainly was a legitimate connection between Saddam's regime and Radical Islamist Terror Organizations. This angle could never be explored, because the essential groundwork was not done, the Declaration of War would have covered it. Instead, the "case was made" on the basis of these "WMD's" that Saddam posed a threat in having.

The next mistake... The WMD's! In making the argument about the WMD's, a physical tangible is introduced... the physical existence of which, can be debated, questioned, suspected, scoffed at, contradicted, speculated upon, and the perception of having to produce this physical object to legitimize it. Compound this mistake in strategy, with the common sense fact of the matter here... Saddam would have to be the biggest idiot to ever live, to have been "caught with the goods" after the enormous period of grace, courtesy of the 12-year UN debacle. The odds of being able to produce this tangible physical object, were virtually nil from the start. Whether WMD's existed, didn't exist, were moved, had been destroyed, were being smuggled out to alQaeda... it didn't matter, and never should have been made a vital part of the justification for war. The "case" as it were, should have always been centered around the declared War on Terror.

On top of all these mistakes, is the mistake of not handling Iraq like we handled Afghanistan, and attempting to place an "interim ruler" in Baghdad. This irreversible mistake was the needed fuel for the insurgency to gain strength, and they exploited it every single day. We mistakenly assumed the combat-heavy forces we executed, could handle any resistance, and failed to understand the nature of a terrorist enemy. Bush, in a very rare moment of poignancy, said that the War on Terror would be unlike any war we've ever fought, because this is a different type of enemy, and because of this nature, we would have to fight this war differently.... then, he and Rumsfeld promptly tried to fight a 'conventional' war in Iraq.

The next mistake, keeping Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary, after Abu Grahib. Bush should have taken that opportunity to replace Rumsfeld with someone of military background and experience... Norman Schwarzkopf comes to mind. Having a Defense Secretary who is familiar with military operations in Iraq, would have been enormously beneficial to us in this war. Instead, we got the Bush loyalty and indifference to reality of public perception, and inability to adjust or compensate. The more the left related Iraq to the quagmire of Vietnam, the more Rumsfeld did the very things in Iraq, that turned Vietnam into a quagmire in the first place. He began to do what Rumsfeld does best, and micromanage the whole thing. The very same mistake was made by Westmorland during Vietnam, and the results were catastrophic.

With all of these mistakes, comes the consequences... the current public perception of Iraq... which, in the end, is really all that matters. We can't determine what will become of the middle east in years to come, for all we know, in fifty years, it could be a giant glass fishbowl full of radioactive oil. We do know, the phrase, "Where are the WMD's?", will be around for eternity. Bush will be remembered as one of, (if not the), most unpopular two-term presidents in history. Regardless of how Iraq turns out, there will be pinheads who go to their graves convinced that it was all about the oil and revenge for Pappy, just as those who have gone to their graves believing FDR knew about Pearl Harbor. In the end, Bush will be remembered for the same mistakes of his father, his inability to understand America doesn't understand.

[Cypress]

for those who don't have the patience for long-winded diatribes, allow me to provide the Reader's Digest summary:

1) It's the american people's fault: They simply don't understand Dixie's and Bush's vision.

2) Bush should have spun and sold the war differently. Spinning and selling correctly makes all the difference.

[Jarod]

He claimed Bush cant make a Clinton Style comeback...

Well President Clinton was never as low as Bush is... Bush would have to make a Jesus style comeback... from the dead!

[Beefy]

for those who don't have the patience for long-winded diatribes, allow me to provide the Reader's Digest summary:

1) It's the american people's fault: They simply don't understand Dixie's and Bush's vision.

2) Bush should have spun and sold the war differently. Spinning and selling correctly makes all the difference.

Peppered in there also is the monumentally retarded, idiotic and unbelievable assertion that upon facing invasion from his greatest and most powerful enemy, Hussein might have gotten rid of his best weapons in order to embarrass W.

How anyone could possibly believe such an asinine, enormously foolish excuse for the W's obvious desire for war, is astonishing. Truly astonishing.

[maineman]

I agree with the idea that America should have declared war on Islamic extremism... which would have taken us anywhere BUT Iraq. Iraq was our unwitting ally in the war on islamic extremism. Saddam did not trust them any more than we did. They were out to topple his regime just as much as they were out to topple ours. THe mistake was conjoining Iraq with the war on terror. The war in Iraq has lost us ground in the war on islamic extremism. Islamic extremism has gained more adherents because of our invasion/conquest/occupation of Iraq and it certainly has gained more tacit supporters. If we think that the majority of the Arab world wants US to prevail against Islamic extremism NOW, after we've sent in an army of mostly christian soldiers to conquer and occupy an arab muslim country, we are kidding ourselves. We give carte blanche to Israel and we have an occupying army in the heart of the Islamic world. And neocons think that because some GIs rebuild an Iraqi school that the effect of that will be negated?

This "war" in Iraq is a mistake, not because of the distaste Americans have developed for it, but because of the distaste that muslims have had for it from day one.

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

Peppered in there also is the monumentally retarded, idiotic and unbelievable assertion that upon facing invasion from his greatest and most powerful enemy, Hussein might have gotten rid of his best weapons in order to embarrass W.

Saddam embarrassed W by defying the UN and forcing him to make the next move. Getting rid of the suspected WMD's, and any trace of his programs, was far more than something to embarrass Bush with. Think about it a minute, the international community was not going to rest until it was satisfied Saddam had disarmed. Saddam was smart enough to realize this, he wasn't foolish enough to think he could continue producing WMD's and get away with it. When Bush fingered him as part of the Axis of Evil, and the administration began pursuing this mission of disarming Saddam, he had to have realized the jig was pretty much up for him, and eventually, he would not be allowed to keep any WMD's he may have had. He fully understood, the road to his abdication would ultimately have to involve the elimination of these weapons.

Knowing this, why would he try to act like a 3-year-old, and maintain possession of the very thing Bush was claiming justified the war? Point made, if Saddam was as pathetically stupid as you, he would have hung onto the WMD's until we pried them out of his grubby little hands!


Iraq was our unwitting ally in the war on islamic extremism. Saddam did not trust them any more than we did. They were out to topple his regime just as much as they were out to topple ours. THe mistake was conjoining Iraq with the war on terror. The war in Iraq has lost us ground in the war on islamic extremism. Islamic extremism has gained more adherents because of our invasion/conquest/occupation of Iraq and it certainly has gained more tacit supporters.

Same rhetorical bullshit you've spewed all along, nothing new. There was a profound and clear connection between Saddam Hussein and radical Islamist terrorism. If you want to continue living in denial of the facts on this, that is entirely up to you, but it has been documented over and over again. You simply take every piece of critical evidence, and parse it out into explanations and excuses you think sounds plausible. Meetings took place, there was no error in this data, there was no 'bad intelligence' on this, we have witnesses who were there, who saw Saddam's regime deal with alQaeda and other radical Islamist terror groups, and have sworn affidavits on it. Like I said before... just because pinhead propagandists tell you there was no connection, doesn't make it so. You can repeat your lie over and over for the rest of your sorry life, it will never make it true, it will never be honest or accurate, and as long as you refuse to acknowledge the facts, you will be on the wrong side of the history books, along with those who thought FDR knew about Pearl Harbor and the moon landing was a huge government conspiracy.

[Cypress]

DIXIE: "Same rhetorical bullshit you've spewed all along, nothing new. There was a profound and clear connection between Saddam Hussein and radical Islamist terrorism."


*United States Senate Bipartisan Iraq Intelligence Investigation - Phase 2 September 8 2006:

-Conclusion 1: "Postwar finding indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of Al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al Qaeda to provide material or operations support.


-Conclusion 2: "Postwar findings indicate Zarqawi was in Bagdad from May 2002 until late November 2003. Postwar assessment indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfuly to locate and capture Zarqawi and that the regime DID NOT have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi. "

[Cypress]

DIXIE: "Same rhetorical bullshit you've spewed all along, nothing new. There was a profound and clear connection between Saddam Hussein and radical Islamist terrorism."

************************************************** *************
*United States Senate Bipartisan Iraq Intelligence Investigation - Phase 2 September 8 2006:

-Conclusion 1: "Postwar finding indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of Al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al Qaeda to provide material or operations support.


-Conclusion 2: "Postwar findings indicate Zarqawi was in Bagdad from May 2002 until late November 2003. Postwar assessment indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfuly to locate and capture Zarqawi and that the regime DID NOT have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi. "

-RAND BEERS, Bush’s Senior Director for Combating Terrorism, National Security Council: "I was concerned that we had headed our foreign policy in the wrong direction when we shifted from fighting the war on terrorism to mobilizing for the invasion of Iraq…I thought the administration misrepresented the connection between terrorist groups and the Saddam Hussein government….I never saw that connection".

-General BRENT SCOWCROFT, Poppy Bush’s National Security Advisor: “Saddam is a familiar dictatorial aggressor, with traditional goals for his aggression. There is little evidence to indicate that the United States itself is an object of his aggression…An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counter terrorist campaign we have undertaken."

-DAVID KAY, Bush’s own WMD inspector: "At various times Al Qaeda people came through Baghdad and in some cases resided there…But we simply DID NOT FIND any evidence of extensive links with Al Qaeda, or for that matter any real links at all."

-FLYNT LEVERETT, Bush’s former senior director, National Security Council: “"Those Americans {in Iraq} are dying because this administration screwed up…The Bush administration heard what they wanted to hear. They were not willing to face reality and were not willing to pay the price for resources for their ambition�

[Beefy]

Peppered in there also is the monumentally retarded, idiotic and unbelievable assertion that upon facing invasion from his greatest and most powerful enemy, Hussein might have gotten rid of his best weapons in order to embarrass W.

Saddam embarrassed W by defying the UN and forcing him to make the next move. Getting rid of the suspected WMD's, and any trace of his programs, was far more than something to embarrass Bush with. Think about it a minute, the international community was not going to rest until it was satisfied Saddam had disarmed. Saddam was smart enough to realize this, he wasn't foolish enough to think he could continue producing WMD's and get away with it. When Bush fingered him as part of the Axis of Evil, and the administration began pursuing this mission of disarming Saddam, he had to have realized the jig was pretty much up for him, and eventually, he would not be allowed to keep any WMD's he may have had. He fully understood, the road to his abdication would ultimately have to involve the elimination of these weapons.

Knowing this, why would he try to act like a 3-year-old, and maintain possession of the very thing Bush was claiming justified the war? Point made, if Saddam was as pathetically stupid as you, he would have hung onto the WMD's until we pried them out of his grubby little hands!

If you really believe this, you are a damned fool. And if anyone in Washington is foolish enough to believe anything even remotely resembling this crap, then they are as well. While you're relatively harmless, this kind of stupidity gets our guys killed. You really ought to be embarrassed to have to stretch this far to justify the actions of your false idol.

[maineman]

Iraq was our unwitting ally in the war on islamic extremism. Saddam did not trust them any more than we did. They were out to topple his regime just as much as they were out to topple ours. THe mistake was conjoining Iraq with the war on terror. The war in Iraq has lost us ground in the war on islamic extremism. Islamic extremism has gained more adherents because of our invasion/conquest/occupation of Iraq and it certainly has gained more tacit supporters.

Same rhetorical bullshit you've spewed all along, nothing new. There was a profound and clear connection between Saddam Hussein and radical Islamist terrorism. If you want to continue living in denial of the facts on this, that is entirely up to you, but it has been documented over and over again. You simply take every piece of critical evidence, and parse it out into explanations and excuses you think sounds plausible. Meetings took place, there was no error in this data, there was no 'bad intelligence' on this, we have witnesses who were there, who saw Saddam's regime deal with alQaeda and other radical Islamist terror groups, and have sworn affidavits on it. Like I said before... just because pinhead propagandists tell you there was no connection, doesn't make it so. You can repeat your lie over and over for the rest of your sorry life, it will never make it true, it will never be honest or accurate, and as long as you refuse to acknowledge the facts, you will be on the wrong side of the history books, along with those who thought FDR knew about Pearl Harbor and the moon landing was a huge government conspiracy.

having meetings with islamic extremists is not synonymous with allying oneself with islamic extremists. YOu have shown documented evidence of some meetings....I can show you documented evidence of every single day operational contact between the United States and the Soviet Union that stretched on for decades, yet no one is saying that such meetings were evidence of any sort of alliance or shared objective beyond the mutually held desire not to be blown into nothingness by the other guy.

No one is doubting the clear and convincing connection between Saddam and arab nationalist terrorist organizations. Saddam most certainly did indeed provide financial and operational support and assistance to palestinian and iranian nationalist organizations....no doubt. No doubt that Saddam did indeed provide financial remuneration to the families of palestinian terrorists who blew themselves up at Israeli pizza parlors and bus stops. THOSE terrorists are NOT wahabbist islamic extremists like the ones that declared war on us and like the ones who attacked us on 9/11. To continue to hold up Saddam's support for palestinian nationalism as a good reason for America to go invade and conquer Iraq in the wake of 9/11 is tantamount to just saying that the only good raghead is a dead raghead.

Saddam would NOT give a weapon of mass destruction to an organization whose primary strategic goal was the elimination of his hold on power. To continue to claim that meetings between his intelligence force and members of Islamic extremist organizations is proof that such an alliance were even being contemplated is ridiculous....it is now and it always has been.

The fact remains...Saddam did a GREAT job at keeping Islamic extremists OUT of his country, and of keeping shiites and sunnis from wholesale slaughtering each other, and of keeping a lid on Iranian regional hegemony and influence.

We would be safer today and further down the path to making ourselves significantly safer from the threat of islamic extremists if we had not invaded Iraq in the first place. You have NOTHING to show for the 25000 dead and wounded Americans and the half a trillion dollars flushed down the shitter except a world less safe and more violent than before we started.

[Area 51]

We need the 50 gallon drums! Pronto!

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

If you really believe this, you are a damned fool. And if anyone in Washington is foolish enough to believe anything even remotely resembling this crap, then they are as well. While you're relatively harmless, this kind of stupidity gets our guys killed. You really ought to be embarrassed to have to stretch this far to justify the actions of your false idol.

Beefy, in the realm of reasoned debate and discussion, when something has no basis for belief, it is fairly easy to show. I notice, instead of you offering some counter to my opinion, or rational rebuttal of it, you have decided to start lobbing shit bombs at me and call me an idiot and fool. Thank you for illustrating that my point was made brilliantly, with no possible counter point.

Let me ask you straight up... If the police telephoned your home, and told you... we are going to be at your house next week, to search for drugs they are certain you have in your possession....(which you do)... would you just sit there and wait for the cops to come and find the drugs and haul you off to prison? Or would you more likely try to get rid of any trace of drugs before the cops arrived? Would it matter about the quality or quantity of drugs? Would it matter if you loved the drugs and really wanted to keep them? Would you take the chance of hiding the drugs inside your house, and hope they didn't discover them? Or would you most likely get them completely off your property, and leave no trace of any drugs on the premises? I certainly know what I would do in that situation... but some people are more stupid than others, maybe you are one of those?

So far, I have not talked to one single person who could tell me what Saddam's justification would be, to hold onto aging and degrading chemical and biological weapons. Your idiocy almost sounds like you think Saddam was actually contemplating having a chance to win a war against us with these WMD's, and that is about as funny and humorous as a pinhead could get. There was ZERO possibility of this, and Saddam was a little bit smarter than you, and understood that.

Chemical and biological weapons are primarily an offensive weapon, used on an unsuspecting adversary for maximum damage. They are essentially useless as a defensive weapon against a military equipped to deal with them, as the US was. Even if your logic were how Saddam was thinking, it would have failed miserably, while showing the entire world that Bush's invasion was totally justified all along. Like I said, Saddam was not as stupid as you are.

[Area 51]

If you really believe this, you are a damned fool. And if anyone in Washington is foolish enough to believe anything even remotely resembling this crap, then they are as well. While you're relatively harmless, this kind of stupidity gets our guys killed. You really ought to be embarrassed to have to stretch this far to justify the actions of your false idol.

Beefy, in the realm of reasoned debate and discussion, when something has no basis for belief, it is fairly easy to show. I notice, instead of you offering some counter to my opinion, or rational rebuttal of it, you have decided to start lobbing shit bombs at me and call me an idiot and fool. Thank you for illustrating that my point was made brilliantly, with no possible counter point.

Let me ask you straight up... If the police telephoned your home, and told you... we are going to be at your house next week, to search for drugs they are certain you have in your possession....(which you do)... would you just sit there and wait for the cops to come and find the drugs and haul you off to prison? Or would you more likely try to get rid of any trace of drugs before the cops arrived? Would it matter about the quality or quantity of drugs? Would it matter if you loved the drugs and really wanted to keep them? Would you take the chance of hiding the drugs inside your house, and hope they didn't discover them? Or would you most likely get them completely off your property, and leave no trace of any drugs on the premises? I certainly know what I would do in that situation... but some people are more stupid than others, maybe you are one of those?

So far, I have not talked to one single person who could tell me what Saddam's justification would be, to hold onto aging and degrading chemical and biological weapons. Your idiocy almost sounds like you think Saddam was actually contemplating having a chance to win a war against us with these WMD's, and that is about as funny and humorous as a pinhead could get. There was ZERO possibility of this, and Saddam was a little bit smarter than you, and understood that.

Chemical and biological weapons are primarily an offensive weapon, used on an unsuspecting adversary for maximum damage. They are essentially useless as a defensive weapon against a military equipped to deal with them, as the US was. Even if your logic were how Saddam was thinking, it would have failed miserably, while showing the entire world that Bush's invasion was totally justified all along. Like I said, Saddam was not as stupid as you are.

If he escaped from one of my 50 gallon drums-then I really need to requistion larger drums!

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

having meetings with islamic extremists is not synonymous with allying oneself with islamic extremists.

Yes it is! Now shut the fuck up with the excuses and explanations! I don't need to hear them for the fifteen-millionth time! You've posted them over and over again, and posting them once more, is not going to make your case.

No one is doubting the clear and convincing connection between Saddam and arab nationalist terrorist organizations. Saddam most certainly did indeed provide financial and operational support and assistance to palestinian and iranian nationalist organizations....no doubt. No doubt that Saddam did indeed provide financial remuneration to the families of palestinian terrorists who blew themselves up at Israeli pizza parlors and bus stops.

Yes he did! And this is the "case" the war should have centered on. In addition to these terror organizations, Saddam's regime did indeed meet with representatives of alQaeda, and authorized training camps for them. You can deny this all you like, the evidence is well documented, and irrefutable.

The fact remains...Saddam did a GREAT job at keeping Islamic extremists OUT of his country

This is false, and doesn't remain a fact anywhere except inside your pinhead.

We would be safer today and further down the path to making ourselves significantly safer from the threat of islamic extremists if we had not invaded Iraq in the first place.

And we would have been safer today and further down the road to prosperity, had we not invaded Normandy or bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. See how easy I can form an idiotic viewpoint based on something that can't be proven? You have NO way of determining what would have been safer, or might have produced better results, you are reacting to what has happened and trying to establish a false reality that would have happened otherwise, and that is not going to stand with me, it's an illogical fallacy, sorry.

[maineman]

[having meetings with islamic extremists is not synonymous with allying oneself with islamic extremists.

Yes it is! Now shut the fuck up with the excuses and explanations! I don't need to hear them for the fifteen-millionth time! You've posted them over and over again, and posting them once more, is not going to make your case.

no. It is not. Like I said over and over again.... adversaries meet all the time in this world.... for you to suggest that meetings mean alliances would suggest that the US and the USSR were allies all throughout the cold war

No one is doubting the clear and convincing connection between Saddam and arab nationalist terrorist organizations. Saddam most certainly did indeed provide financial and operational support and assistance to palestinian and iranian nationalist organizations....no doubt. No doubt that Saddam did indeed provide financial remuneration to the families of palestinian terrorists who blew themselves up at Israeli pizza parlors and bus stops.

Yes he did! And this is the "case" the war should have centered on. In addition to these terror organizations, Saddam's regime did indeed meet with representatives of alQaeda, and authorized training camps for them. You can deny this all you like, the evidence is well documented, and irrefutable.

no.... there were no AQ training camps authorized by Saddam in Iraq... that would have been suicidal... and for you to suggest that supporting the PLO is a reason for us to invade Iraq is the height of ignorant bigotry. Ragheads are NOT all alike.


The fact remains...Saddam did a GREAT job at keeping Islamic extremists OUT of his country

This is false, and doesn't remain a fact anywhere except inside your pinhead.

there were no Al Qaeda members blowing up mosques in Iraq when Saddam was in power.... there were not operating there at all. The baathists would not let them in.

We would be safer today and further down the path to making ourselves significantly safer from the threat of islamic extremists if we had not invaded Iraq in the first place.

And we would have been safer today and further down the road to prosperity, had we not invaded Normandy or bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. See how easy I can form an idiotic viewpoint based on something that can't be proven? You have NO way of determining what would have been safer, or might have produced better results, you are reacting to what has happened and trying to establish a false reality that would have happened otherwise, and that is not going to stand with me, it's an illogical fallacy, sorry.

Comparing the axis powers to Saddam is really insane. Comparing the axis powers to Al Qaeda is more accurate. I KNOW who our enemy is and it was not Saddam Hussein's secular baathist regime in Iraq. I know of a whole host of defensive measures we could have taken here at home, and intelligence initiatives we could have undertaken throughout the arab world with the half a trillion dollars we have flushed down the toilet in Iraq.... there is no doubt that doing those things would have made us - at WORST - marginally safer as opposed to the LESS safe position we find ourselves today with more enemies, and less soldiers, money and allies to fight them with than before this debacle in Iraq.