President Bush is doing well.

I apologize in advance here, folks. I usually try not to respond to OT
posts but...

On 2/19/04 10:51 PM, in article
, "Rick Folkers"
wrote:

What a bunch of horse****. You don't rate presidents on one issue.

But let's clear one thing up. Iraq was not tied either to 9/11 or to
Al queda. And there were no WMD's . Bush lied.


President Bush did not necessarily lie. By stating that, you make a huge
assumption based on your own obvious predispositions.

Hussein *did* have WMD prior to the Gulf War. It is a fact. It was
reasonable for the president to conclude that Iraq *still* had WMD (despite
his statements to the contrary) given Saddam Hussein's

-- Poor record on truth-telling in the past
-- Posturing and unwillingness to allow U.N. Inspectors access to verify his
lack of WMD.
-- His willingness to use WMD in the past, his support of terrorism, his
hatred of the U.S.

and

-- The intelligence that suggested Iraq was attempting to build up a program

Remember, that intel was flawed partially because it was restricted on the
sources it could use for HUMINT.

The question isn't: "Did Saddam Hussein possess WMD?"

He did. In fact, he used it.

The question is: "Where did the WMD go?" and perhaps "When did they go?"
Given the quagmire in post-war Iraq, we may never find out the real truth.

The majority of the country supported the war in Iraq before the war.
Secretary Powell made a good case for war in front of the U.N., but even in
the worst case, if Iraq's WMD program was, in fact, impotent, the end
justifies the means because,

-- Yet another evil dictator has been removed from power.
-- The U.S. has a means to remove itself from the Operation Southern Watch
quagmire that it had been involved in for 12 years.
-- Libya has decided to follow suit and come clean.

The real mistake was for the previous President Bush to fail to go into Iraq
in 1991 to remove Saddam Hussein from power when it would have been more
justifiable in the court of public opinion. To leave Saddam Hussein in
power for an additional 12 years thinking we could contain him or that he
would change was naïve.

Let's also not forget the president's (GWB's) leadership immediately after
9/11, his success in Afghanistan, his tax cut program, his prescription drug
program, and his ability to turn the post 9/11 economy around.

But beyond his foreign policy, which except for his lies I mainly support,
the son of a Bitch lied to start his war and then used the war to take away
freedoms I fought to protect.;

What freedoms? The constitution and its amendments have not been changed.

He then allowed foreign workers to take over American
jobs and is proposing more of the same. And for what? because his big
business buddies don't want to play fair market with American workers.
Big Business decides
they don't like the wages they have to pay so they claim they cannot get
workers, when the truth is they can't get wages for what they are paying.

Why do they *have* to pay those wages? We have a free market economy.
What's a fair market economy? Sounds like socialism.

So the Pres allows them
to bring in foreigners at lower rates. Then the Americans are laid off,
they can't buy, and more American laborers are laid off.


You're making no sense here. Jobless rates are declining. The economy is
on the turnaround, and the likely alternative to President Bush in the
coming election will be John Kerry (as Rob Schneider put it: "He's Ted
Kennedy without the booze and hookers.")

--Woody

Woody, by that rationale, we need to sortie our invasion forces immediately to
attack Iran and North Korea at a minimum. We know they have WMD, we know
they'll use them. Ergo, we go to war immediately, without anyone agreeing with
us.

No matter how frustrating it is to deal with the UN, we either use them as the
'oversight committee' for the world, or we take on the role of Big Brother for
the rest of humanity. Given that we turned out to be wrong in this case, I
imagine it will only be one or two more such incidents before we have sanctions
placed upon us, for the very reason that we put them on others.

George Bush declared Saddam would be gone. Two presidential cycles later, his
son took power and completed his father's tasking; WMD was an excuse to give
his 'change of regime' plan some validity.

As for the well-known and often mentioned chem attack on the Kurdish village -
the CIA released information that the chemicals used did not match the
fingerprint of Iraqi stocks, but did match the gas in Iranian inventory. But
since that CIA report two, three years ago, it seems to have been forgotten and
Saddam gets the blame. Did he use agents in combat? With surity - but not in
that case that seems to be ritually used to prove Bush's case against him.

I think if Bush had come right out and said, "This turd needs to get flushed
but instead of using a flimsy excuse that 80% of the world will not agree with,
I am going to finish the job my dad started," folks would have had less trouble
with his decision to unilaterally invade another country.

v/r
Gordon

"Krztalizer" wrote in message
...
Woody, by that rationale, we need to sortie our invasion forces
immediately to
attack Iran and North Korea at a minimum. We know they have WMD, we know
they'll use them. Ergo, we go to war immediately, without anyone agreeing
with
us.

No matter how frustrating it is to deal with the UN, we either use them as
the
'oversight committee' for the world, or we take on the role of Big Brother
for
the rest of humanity. Given that we turned out to be wrong in this case,
I
imagine it will only be one or two more such incidents before we have
sanctions
placed upon us, for the very reason that we put them on others.

George Bush declared Saddam would be gone. Two presidential cycles later,
his
son took power and completed his father's tasking; WMD was an excuse to
give
his 'change of regime' plan some validity.

As for the well-known and often mentioned chem attack on the Kurdish
village -
the CIA released information that the chemicals used did not match the
fingerprint of Iraqi stocks, but did match the gas in Iranian inventory.
But
since that CIA report two, three years ago, it seems to have been
forgotten and
Saddam gets the blame. Did he use agents in combat? With surity - but
not in
that case that seems to be ritually used to prove Bush's case against him.

I think if Bush had come right out and said, "This turd needs to get
flushed
but instead of using a flimsy excuse that 80% of the world will not agree
with,
I am going to finish the job my dad started," folks would have had less
trouble
with his decision to unilaterally invade another country.

v/r
Gordon

Isn't it amazing how we ignore/revise history when politically convenient?
The Iraqi Liberation Act passed the House of Representatives by a vote of
360 to 38; the Senate vote was unanimous. Please note the content of the
Act, and, most especially, its date:

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/i...bact103198.pdf

Where are all those big Congressional boosters today? Are they buried in a
trench somewhere above or below the WMD?

Also, the date that the House of Representatives formally commenced
investigation of a potential impeachment may be more than just a
coincidence.

Just a bit of bipartisan musing over a couple of the many "October
Surprises" in our political history...

Rick





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On 2/21/04 11:40 AM, in article
, "Krztalizer"
wrote:

Woody, by that rationale, we need to sortie our invasion forces immediately to
attack Iran and North Korea at a minimum. We know they have WMD, we know
they'll use them. Ergo, we go to war immediately, without anyone agreeing
with
us.


I didn't say we know that they *will* use them. I said that we know that
Iraq *has* used them. Saddam Hussein had already opened the Pandora's box
on that one. In addition during the 12 years of OSW, he made many threats
against American pilots, had his pilots fly into the NFZ, had his gunners
and SAM operators shooting at Americans and Brits patrolling the skies over
there (using SAM's and AAA placed south of the 33rd parallel in violation of
the demarkation order post-Gulf War).

Not to mention Ansar Al Islam's presence in northeastern Iraq and their
links to terrorism.

No matter how frustrating it is to deal with the UN, we either use them as the
'oversight committee' for the world, or we take on the role of Big Brother for
the rest of humanity. Given that we turned out to be wrong in this case, I
imagine it will only be one or two more such incidents before we have
sanctions
placed upon us, for the very reason that we put them on others.


Of course, I respectfully disagree. We're the USA not the United Nations of
America. If our interests are threatened and we have probable cause to take
military action, we should take it... I realize that we differ on what
constitutes that probable cause.

George Bush declared Saddam would be gone. Two presidential cycles later, his
son took power and completed his father's tasking; WMD was an excuse to give
his 'change of regime' plan some validity.


WMD was only ONE of the offenses in question. The press has picked it up as
the big ticket item because of their propensity to go Woodward and Bernstein
and emphasize controversy in every news story. Next time even your local
media presents a human interest piece look for the ... But... In the middle
of the story where the controversy is revealed.

There's no question really that Saddam HAD WMD and had USED WMD. As I
stated in the previous post the more appropriate questions are where did it
go and when did it go?

As for the well-known and often mentioned chem attack on the Kurdish village -
the CIA released information that the chemicals used did not match the
fingerprint of Iraqi stocks, but did match the gas in Iranian inventory. But
since that CIA report two, three years ago, it seems to have been forgotten
and
Saddam gets the blame. Did he use agents in combat? With surity - but not in
that case that seems to be ritually used to prove Bush's case against him.

I think if Bush had come right out and said, "This turd needs to get flushed
but instead of using a flimsy excuse that 80% of the world will not agree
with,
I am going to finish the job my dad started," folks would have had less
trouble
with his decision to unilaterally invade another country.

v/r
Gordon

I can empathize, but I think that President Bush did, in effect, say that he
was flushin' the turd. Secretary Powell's pre-war presentation to the UN
made precisely the point that Hussein's conduct as well as the potential
possession of WMD was under fire.

I'm behind the Commander in Chief, the Senate, and the Congress on their
decision to go to war in this case. And as I said before--even if we were
incorrect about WMD, there were numerous other good reasons for invading
Iraq--many of which relate to the reasons that we went into the Balkans
under President Clinton.

Thanks for the discussion. We can agree to disagree, but frankly, I'm
terminating. I'd rather discuss Naval Aviation instead of this OT politics
stuff.

--Woody

Thanks for the discussion. We can agree to disagree, but frankly, I'm
terminating. I'd rather discuss Naval Aviation instead of this OT politics
stuff.

Sounds good to me. Now, back to the hook-skippin' tales of glory

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

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