White House denies regime change is part of Libya mission [edited]

j-mac said:

Non Sequitur, the US had, and has enormous interests in the region. The Saudis were putting heavy pressure to take out Saddam.

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And we take orders from Saudi Arabia? Good god man, have some pride. It doesn't matter what Saudi wants, our government does not serve them. It's us, our rights and sovereignty that our government is to protect. Neither of those were served in Iraq. There was no good reason to get bogged down in this quagmire that's killed more Americans than 9/11, and put us in debt to the Chinese up to our ears. It's a BS war waged on BS reasons and Iraq never had the capability to ever threaten our sovereignty. That's plan fact. Defense should be use for defense, in defense of our own rights and our own sovereignty. Our government was not given the power to the be World's Police, it was never authorized to behave in this manner. Our military should be for our direct needs only, not others.

j-mac said:

False premise, however I'd say the third one. The US is a sovereign nation, and has the ability to act unilaterally in protecting its interests.

j-mac

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If we are going to war against another sovereign nation, I believe it is important to have an official declaration of war issued by Congress. Seeing how at first we didn't have a standing army and it took an act of Congress to allow the President to raise one; now that we have a standing army it seems reasonable that we put more restrictions on how it can be used and under what conditions. We aren't the empire here and I don't want my military scattered across the globe doing odd jobs for various countries. Let them deal with their own problems, we have problems of our own that need to be addressed. Like a ballooning debt in part caused by these wars.

Of course, that's if we're sovereign and not just Saudi's attack dog taking out whomever they put pressure on us to take out, right? I mean, if Saudi wants it, we must do it.

theplaydrive said:

I'm not sure if Bush lied but he certainly operated irresponsibly on poor intelligence. Also, "overwhelming evidence" is a ridiculous thing to say. If there was overwhelming evidence, then we would have found weapons. There was crappy evidence.

It was a preventive war and in my mind preventive war is irresponsible.

Click to expand...

I have posted the irrefutable evidence to you and others on several occasions.

Some of the intelligence was crappy and wrong. It’s the stuff they got right and the WMD programs missed by UN inspectors that’s a bit more difficult to explain away.

UNSCOM, UNMOVIC and the ISG reports are irrefutable and provide overwhelming evidence.

So far not a single one of you hoaxers have even tried to explain what was found in Iraq. You just ignore it.

theplaydrive said:

If by hoax, you mean that the use of force in Iraq was not supported under UN provisions for what constitutes a legal, acceptable war...Ask Kofi Annan. You can debate about the legality of the war, but to call it a "hoax" denies that international law exists and that its application to the Iraq War can be debated.

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Kofi was not the President of the US. It doesn't matter what his opinion is.

His weapons inspectors proved Saddam was in violation of numerous resolutions.

The "illegal war" nonsense was a hoax. We don't need UN approval to do anything. Get over it.

Ron Mars said:

I have posted the irrefutable evidence to you and others on several occasions.

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As point of fact. No, you have not. :coffeepap

Grant said:

"Imminent threat" only comes into play if a President wants to start a war on an adversary and he has 60 days thereafter to take it to Congress with another possible 30 day extension.

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And, just to be clear, you're talking about the War Powers Acts, correct?

United States Code: Title 50,CHAPTER 33—WAR POWERS RESOLUTION

theplaydrive said:

I'm not sure if Bush lied but he certainly operated irresponsibly on poor intelligence. Also, "overwhelming evidence" is a ridiculous thing to say. If there was overwhelming evidence, then we would have found weapons. There was crappy evidence.

It was a preventive war and in my mind preventive war is irresponsible.

Click to expand...

The only thing these dictators, terrorist scumbags, etc, etc respect is strength. If America is strong, they have do deal with us from a position of disadvantage. If America hobbles itself into a position of weakness through *nuanced diplomacy*, or whatever verbal diarrhea you want to dress up words like *lack of resolve* or “cowardice” in, ...than so much the better for those countries who are attempting to compete with us on any level.

President Bush with all his faults is a man of character who did what he thought was right for America....

He was the right man at the right time. Definitely miss him.

Simon W. Moon said:

And, just to be clear, you're talking about the War Powers Acts, correct?

United States Code: Title 50,CHAPTER 33—WAR POWERS RESOLUTION

Click to expand...

This should cover it more easily here.

War Powers Resolution (1973): Major Acts of Congress

In other news.....the White House today denied that Obama has dark skin and that gravity makes things fall down.

Ikari said:

And we take orders from Saudi Arabia? Good god man, have some pride. It doesn't matter what Saudi wants, our government does not serve them. It's us, our rights and sovereignty that our government is to protect.

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That is a wonderfully isolationist view you got going on there. I am sure that is part of the reason that China and Russia are gaining ground on oil supplies that used to come here, now under contract to go there.

No one said that we are subservient to SA, but they have a relationship with us in the region, and are of American national interest. Hell, even Barry bows to the Saudi King.

Neither of those were served in Iraq. There was no good reason to get bogged down in this quagmire that's killed more Americans than 9/11, and put us in debt to the Chinese up to our ears. It's a BS war waged on BS reasons and Iraq never had the capability to ever threaten our sovereignty. That's plan fact.

Click to expand...

"plain fact"? Why? Because you say so? Because you have over time, and arm chair quaterbacking come to this conclusion? Tell me, should we consult your crystal ball before we take any movement as a nation, to make you happy? Get outta here with that talking point crap.

Defense should be use for defense, in defense of our own rights and our own sovereignty. Our government was not given the power to the be World's Police, it was never authorized to behave in this manner. Our military should be for our direct needs only, not others.

Click to expand...

Tell that to the liar n chief, Obama.

If we are going to war against another sovereign nation, I believe it is important to have an official declaration of war issued by Congress.

Click to expand...

When is the last time that was in play? WWII? And how many demo's have used the military to advance their goals around the world since then?

Seeing how at first we didn't have a standing army and it took an act of Congress to allow the President to raise one; now that we have a standing army it seems reasonable that we put more restrictions on how it can be used and under what conditions.

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You got no argument from me there.

We aren't the empire here and I don't want my military scattered across the globe doing odd jobs for various countries.

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I see, so you are not in favor of being number one, you'd settle for 10th place or so....

Let them deal with their own problems, we have problems of our own that need to be addressed. Like a ballooning debt in part caused by these wars.

Click to expand...

Another liberal mantra from you....Look, this country has wasted far more money in the past 40 years on social engineering, and progressive tripe than has ever cost with the military engagements.

Of course, that's if we're sovereign and not just Saudi's attack dog taking out whomever they put pressure on us to take out, right? I mean, if Saudi wants it, we must do it.

Click to expand...

Hey, I'd like to drill our own oil and put our dependence to SA and the ME out of the picture all together, think we can do that though? Not a shot.


j-mac

Grant said:

This should cover it more easily here.
War Powers Resolution (1973): Major Acts of Congress

Click to expand...

But this is what you were talking about when you said,""Imminent threat" only comes into play if a President wants to start a war on an adversary and he has 60 days thereafter to take it to Congress with another possible 30 day extension?"

Grant said:

"Imminent threat" only comes into play if a President wants to start a war on an adversary and he has 60 days thereafter to take it to Congress with another possible 30 day extension.

Click to expand...

j-mac said:

That is a wonderfully isolationist view you got going on there. I am sure that is part of the reason that China and Russia are gaining ground on oil supplies that used to come here, now under contract to go there.

No one said that we are subservient to SA, but they have a relationship with us in the region, and are of American national interest. Hell, even Barry bows to the Saudi King.

Click to expand...

So it's isolationist to say that we shouldn't be forced into doing things by Saudi? By saying that we're sovereign, I'm being an isolationist? We can have all the friends we want in the area, but they still don't get to dictate our military. "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." -- Thomas Jefferson. It's time to heed the words of Jefferson. Just because we're friendly with another nation does not make us that nation's attack dog. They're still on their own for their defense.

j-mac said:

"plain fact"? Why? Because you say so? Because you have over time, and arm chair quaterbacking come to this conclusion? Tell me, should we consult your crystal ball before we take any movement as a nation, to make you happy? Get outta here with that talking point crap.

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Get out of here with your deflection crap. Because all the data at the time said that Saddam not only DID NOT have a weapons delivery platform capable of hitting the United States proper, but also had demonstrated no actual intent to strike the United States proper. The FACT (maybe you forgot what that word means) is that Iraq was of minimal threat at best to the United States of America.

j-mac said:

Tell that to the liar n chief, Obama.

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I would, but he's too busy reading "How to **** over the Republic" by George Bush.

j-mac said:

When is the last time that was in play? WWII? And how many demo's have used the military to advance their goals around the world since then?

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The last proper war was indeed WW II. Last one we clearly won. Everything else we've named differently as to avoid any of the constraints and limitations the government is supposed to have upon it in regards to the use of our military. The military protects us. We created it, we man it, we fund it; it's for us. If other people want to be defended, they have to defend themselves. It is not our job. Our government is not authorized to play World Police.

j-mac said:

I see, so you are not in favor of being number one, you'd settle for 10th place or so....

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Number 1 is great, but we don't need to try to take over the world to get it. We could...you know instead of spending trillions on wars (do you bitch about the deficit at all?), not do that and invest a portion of that into other things. All sorts of science and technologies which can be invested into which would make us number 1. Have the world's best, strongest military which is only used for actual defense (not made up defense for emperial forever war), the worlds best tech, the worlds best science. We don't need to be bombing Iraq and Libya till we're broke to be number 1.

j-mac said:

Another liberal mantra from you....Look, this country has wasted far more money in the past 40 years on social engineering, and progressive tripe than has ever cost with the military engagements.

Click to expand...

We're spending massive amounts of money on the war. You want to take some programs we've had, aggregate it up for several decades, add in some other stuff, and say "hey look...this one is nearly 1/10 the number!" and pretend that means something? **** if it's between funding 50-60 years of "social engineering" or forever war....I'd take the social engineering (what ever the **** that's supposed to mean). I'd rather have neither, but social engineering is **** tons better than aggressive, offensive war.

j-mac said:

Hey, I'd like to drill our own oil and put our dependence to SA and the ME out of the picture all together, think we can do that though? Not a shot.


j-mac

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**** oil, we're America. You saying we can't come up with an alternative? Jesus, who doesn't want America to be number one now. "Hey guys, we can't do anything about this oil thing and we certainly aren't smart enough to find a way out of it, so hey let's do everything Saudi Arabia tells us! That sounds like a great plan, heeuck." Yeah...great plan.

Ron Mars said:

I have posted the irrefutable evidence to you and others on several occasions.

Some of the intelligence was crappy and wrong. It’s the stuff they got right and the WMD programs missed by UN inspectors that’s a bit more difficult to explain away.

UNSCOM, UNMOVIC and the ISG reports are irrefutable and provide overwhelming evidence.

So far not a single one of you hoaxers have even tried to explain what was found in Iraq. You just ignore it.

Click to expand...

Irrefutable...No. It was a preventive war no matter how much evidence you think they had. I don't support preventive war. If you do support preventive war, then just say that. But your evidence does not refute my claim that it is, in fact, a preventive war.

Kofi was not the President of the US. It doesn't matter what his opinion is.

His weapons inspectors proved Saddam was in violation of numerous resolutions.

The "illegal war" nonsense was a hoax. We don't need UN approval to do anything. Get over it.

Click to expand...

By calling "illegal war" a hoax, you misunderstand people's use of the term. It has nothing to do with U.S. law. International law holds standards for legal war - preemptive war is legal and preventive war is not. We can debate over whether or not it was or wasn't a preventive war. But I believe it was since Iraq posed no imminent threat to the U.S. - therefore, it was not legal.

ric27 said:

The only thing these dictators, terrorist scumbags, etc, etc respect is strength. If America is strong, they have do deal with us from a position of disadvantage. If America hobbles itself into a position of weakness through *nuanced diplomacy*, or whatever verbal diarrhea you want to dress up words like *lack of resolve* or “cowardice” in, ...than so much the better for those countries who are attempting to compete with us on any level.

President Bush with all his faults is a man of character who did what he thought was right for America....

He was the right man at the right time. Definitely miss him.

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I haven't made any arguments that address these points. I have only said that the Iraq War, by definition, was a preventive war. No one has shown any evidence to refute this, not even George Bush tried to refute this statement. If you believe preventive war is justified, that's on you. I, however, do not. In my opinion, preemptive war is justified. Preventive war is not.

Ikari said:

So it's isolationist to say that we shouldn't be forced into doing things by Saudi? By saying that we're sovereign, I'm being an isolationist? We can have all the friends we want in the area, but they still don't get to dictate our military. "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." -- Thomas Jefferson. It's time to heed the words of Jefferson. Just because we're friendly with another nation does not make us that nation's attack dog. They're still on their own for their defense.

Click to expand...

First of all, I never said anything about SA "forcing us" to do anything as far as Iraq goes, but you can not deny that the alliance we made with them has to go deeper than what can you do for us, and other than that go **** yourself.

Get out of here with your deflection crap. Because all the data at the time said that Saddam not only DID NOT have a weapons delivery platform capable of hitting the United States proper, but also had demonstrated no actual intent to strike the United States proper. The FACT (maybe you forgot what that word means) is that Iraq was of minimal threat at best to the United States of America.

Click to expand...

"All of the data at the time"? Bull ****! I'd sure like to see you prove that empirically.

I would, but he's too busy reading "How to **** over the Republic" by George Bush.

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don't blame me I sure didn't vote for the liar.

The last proper war was indeed WW II. Last one we clearly won. Everything else we've named differently as to avoid any of the constraints and limitations the government is supposed to have upon it in regards to the use of our military. The military protects us. We created it, we man it, we fund it; it's for us. If other people want to be defended, they have to defend themselves. It is not our job. Our government is not authorized to play World Police.

Click to expand...

I noticed how you conveniently skipped over the "who" part of my question to you....The answer to that one would be demo Presidents.

Number 1 is great, but we don't need to try to take over the world to get it. We could...you know instead of spending trillions on wars (do you bitch about the deficit at all?), not do that and invest a portion of that into other things. All sorts of science and technologies which can be invested into which would make us number 1. Have the world's best, strongest military which is only used for actual defense (not made up defense for emperial forever war), the worlds best tech, the worlds best science. We don't need to be bombing Iraq and Libya till we're broke to be number 1.

Click to expand...

that's just great, Sounds like it came straight out of an A.N.S.W.E.R. pamphlet.....

We're spending massive amounts of money on the war. You want to take some programs we've had, aggregate it up for several decades, add in some other stuff, and say "hey look...this one is nearly 1/10 the number!" and pretend that means something? **** if it's between funding 50-60 years of "social engineering" or forever war....I'd take the social engineering (what ever the **** that's supposed to mean). I'd rather have neither, but social engineering is **** tons better than aggressive, offensive war.

Click to expand...

come on sing along people....'I'd love to buy the world a coke....da, da da da, da da....'

**** oil, we're America. You saying we can't come up with an alternative? Jesus, who doesn't want America to be number one now. "Hey guys, we can't do anything about this oil thing and we certainly aren't smart enough to find a way out of it, so hey let's do everything Saudi Arabia tells us! That sounds like a great plan, heeuck." Yeah...great plan.

Click to expand...

Come up with? no, I am not saying we can't do it, but rather we don't have one now, and by most projections, nothing for decades that could replace oil, and coal, and NG as our sources of energy. To claim otherwise, or hold the argument that we don't need to drill, or we can't drill our own because there is this mythical abundant, and easy energy just waiting out there to be used is foolish.

j-mac

theplaydrive said:

Irrefutable...No. It was a preventive war no matter how much evidence you think they had. I don't support preventive war. If you do support preventive war, then just say that. But your evidence does not refute my claim that it is, in fact, a preventive war.

International law holds standards for legal war - preemptive war is legal and preventive war is not. We can debate over whether or not it was or wasn't a preventive war. But I believe it was since Iraq posed no imminent threat to the U.S. - therefore, it was not legal.

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OK TPD. I'm talking about what was found in Iraq related to WMD.

If you want to believe Iraq was a "preventive war" then so be it.

You can disagree with Bush and several dozen other nation's decision to liberate Iraq. You are definitely not alone.

It was by no means illegal despite your intellectual gymnastics about a "preventive war" to prove otherwise.

theplaydrive said:

By calling "illegal war" a hoax, you misunderstand people's use of the term.

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No I don't. Not for a minute. I know exactly what the "illegal war" hoax was about. Destroying President Bush. Nothing more.

Bush followed the law every step of the way.

j-mac said:

First of all, I never said anything about SA "forcing us" to do anything as far as Iraq goes, but you can not deny that the alliance we made with them has to go deeper than what can you do for us, and other than that go **** yourself.

Click to expand...

Nice little personal insult. Good to see you're debating skill hasn't improved. You used as justification of our act that SA put a lot of pressure on us. But that's a horrible, theocratic dictatorship. The majority of the 9/11 bombers came from there. They have oil, that's it. We are not ideologically aligned with them. You can make maybe a bit of an argument for that with Israel given its government, but not SA. SA is a hellhole of a country with a brutal government. But don't let that stand in the way of your little petty insults you're left with since apparently your argument vaporized.

j-mac said:

"All of the data at the time"? Bull ****! I'd sure like to see you prove that empirically.

Click to expand...

It's already been in threads, it may have been this one. Are you trying to tell me Mr Deflection, that at the time we went into Iraq, Iraq had the capability of say launching a WMD from Iraq and hitting New York or LA? Really?

j-mac said:

don't blame me I sure didn't vote for the liar.

Click to expand...

Obama is the same as Bush. They're both as greedy and incompetent. Support of the status quo is support of the status quo. You may not vote for one side of the same coin, but you support the coin.

j-mac said:

I noticed how you conveniently skipped over the "who" part of my question to you....The answer to that one would be demo Presidents.

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It doesn't matter Who. The Republocrats all act the same, you're not going to get anything different from one that you'd get from the other. What matters is the misuse and abuse of our military by a single man, the President. We weren't meant to ever have 1 man that powerful.

j-mac said:

that's just great, Sounds like it came straight out of an A.N.S.W.E.R. pamphlet.....

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It's things we can do. If you just want to belittle and deflect instead of making an actual argument; then so be it. But that just reflects on your own intellect.

j-mac said:

come on sing along people....'I'd love to buy the world a coke....da, da da da, da da....'

Click to expand...

You seem to misunderstand, I don't want to buy any other State anything. We can have good economic and diplomatic relationships, we'll sell things and buy things; but that's where it ends. You want to pretend (and again, this comment of yours here is just deflection and devoid of anything useful. You're really looking more and more like a monkey randomly hitting keys than a human intelligently responding to a post) that the social engineering is the worst part. It's not ideal, and it's best to control and constrain the government so that we can keep it in check. But nothing threatens long term liberty and freedom more than forever war, which is the situation we are setting up currently. Not only that, but forever war is costly as well. Y'all like to sit there and bitch left and right about our deficit, but the things which make the most sense to cut like these unnecessary wars, are the things your ilk will support. It's all "Cut NPR even though it will have no effect what so ever on our spending, but let's keep up with the wars we wasting trillions on and 1000's of American lives for no real purpose other than to establish a forever war thus lending credibility to the rapid expansion of government on all fronts".

It's as dumb as it gets. Babies whom have consumed lead paint can see how dumb it is. But whatever floats your boat I guess.

j-mac said:

Come up with? no, I am not saying we can't do it, but rather we don't have one now, and by most projections, nothing for decades that could replace oil, and coal, and NG as our sources of energy. To claim otherwise, or hold the argument that we don't need to drill, or we can't drill our own because there is this mythical abundant, and easy energy just waiting out there to be used is foolish.

j-mac

Click to expand...

There's plenty of research to fund and technologies to improve. Drilling is only a short term solution. While we can certainly engage in it to immediately try to reduce dependencies, we need to also note that it is not the final solution. Merely a step in the direction of energy independence that will one day be replaced with something else.

Ikari said:

It's already been in threads, it may have been this one. Are you trying to tell me Mr Deflection, that at the time we went into Iraq, Iraq had the capability of say launching a WMD from Iraq and hitting New York or LA? Really?

Click to expand...

How many times are you going to say this when you know it isn't true?

Saddam was working with terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda who had every intention of attacking Americans "anywhere in the world".

I posted the findings of the IPP report and you ignored it Ikari. Why?

Ron Mars said:

How many times are you going to say this when you know it isn't true?

Saddam was working with terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda who had every intention of attacking Americans "anywhere in the world".

I posted the findings of the IPP report and you ignored it Ikari. Why?

Click to expand...

He was not working with Al Qaeda.

Ron Mars said:

How many times are you going to say this when you know it isn't true?

Saddam was working with terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda who had every intention of attacking Americans "anywhere in the world".

I posted the findings of the IPP report and you ignored it Ikari. Why?

Click to expand...

We went through this in the other thread. Saddam was minimally involved with terrorists, they didn't have their run in Iraq. Saddam was in charge and if he agreed with what they were doing, he may provide some amount of support. At the time, Iraq did not have a single weapon platform capable of hitting the US proper.

Do you get tired of being wrong or do you think that if you lie enough people will eventually take it for truth.

Ikari said:

We went through this in the other thread. Saddam was minimally involved with terrorists, they didn't have their run in Iraq. Saddam was in charge and if he agreed with what they were doing, he may provide some amount of support. At the time, Iraq did not have a single weapon platform capable of hitting the US proper.

Do you get tired of being wrong or do you think that if you lie enough people will eventually take it for truth.

Click to expand...

We didn't go throught it. You brushed it off as no big deal.

And he didn't need a "weapons platform". He had willing terrorists at his disposal.

He was willing to work with a terrorist group affilliated with al Qaeda. We know they are quite capable of attacking the US and have tried many times since 9/11.


Captured Iraqi documents have uncovered evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist–operatives monitored closely. Because Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some ways, a “de facto” link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam’s use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime.

Boo Radley said:

He was not working with Al Qaeda.

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Who told you that?

Grant said:

Who told you that?

Click to expand...

The "Bush Lied" fairy.

Grant said:

Who told you that?

Click to expand...

There's plenty of information of this.

Iraq and Al Qaeda are not obvious allies. In fact, they are natural enemies. A central tenet of Al Qaeda's jihadist ideology is that secular Muslim rulers and their regimes have oppressed the believers and plunged Islam into a historic crisis. Hence, a paramount goal of Islamist revolutionaries for almost half a century has been the destruction of the regimes of such leaders as Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar el-Sadat and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, President Hafez al-Assad of Syria, the military government in Algeria and even the Saudi royal family.


Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda Are Not Allies - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

(AP) Saddam Hussein's government did not cooperate with al Qaeda prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Defense Department said in a report based on interrogations of the deposed leader and two of his former aides.

Pentagon: No Saddam-Al Qaeda Link - CBS News

The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration's main justifications for the war in Iraq.

Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed (washingtonpost.com)

Just the first three links ot a search. Misinformation is always hard to get rid of. You can't convince someone of what they think they already know. Bush and his people worked hard to create this misinofrmation, and sites like the WS and NRO worked hard to help repeat it. But there was never anything of significants that would be called a working relationship. Over the years each and every misinformative effort has been addressed, but many still hold to the misinformation.

Grant said:

Who told you that?

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http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0001245667/DOC_0001245667.pdf

Ron Mars said:

And he didn't need a "weapons platform". He had willing terrorists at his disposal.
He was willing to work with a terrorist group affilliated with al Qaeda. We know they are quite capable of attacking the US and have tried many times since 9/11.

Click to expand...

But he wasn't willing to work with them to attack the US. The best info available at tehe time was that Iraq was not likely to initiate an attack on the US directly or via proxy


also:http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0001245667/DOC_0001245667.pdf

Ron Mars said:

Captured Iraqi documents have uncovered evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist–operatives monitored closely. Because Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some ways, a “de facto” link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam’s use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime.

Click to expand...

Ikari said:

Nice little personal insult.

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What? Wait a minute....read it again pal, I didn't insult you personally. I took aim at your vapid stance of get out of our partners what we can, but when it comes to working with them so that the ME doesn't unravel, then screw them.

Good to see you're debating skill hasn't improved.

Click to expand...

bite me.

You used as justification of our act that SA put a lot of pressure on us. But that's a horrible, theocratic dictatorship. The majority of the 9/11 bombers came from there. They have oil, that's it. We are not ideologically aligned with them. You can make maybe a bit of an argument for that with Israel given its government, but not SA. SA is a hellhole of a country with a brutal government.

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Again, given the choice I am sure you would agree with me that being self sufficient in terms of our energy would make us all happy, but that isn't reality is it? And since you brought up Israel, what are we supposed to do there? watch Holocaust II?

But don't let that stand in the way of your little petty insults you're left with since apparently your argument vaporized.

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Gheeze, grow up man, you are not that smart as you think you are.

It's already been in threads, it may have been this one. Are you trying to tell me Mr Deflection, that at the time we went into Iraq, Iraq had the capability of say launching a WMD from Iraq and hitting New York or LA? Really?

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It has? Then it should be NO problem for you to pull it up and post it so we can all see it? Or is this supposed to be one of those snipe hunts that takes a debate opponent out of the game when you are losing the argument?

Obama is the same as Bush. They're both as greedy and incompetent. Support of the status quo is support of the status quo. You may not vote for one side of the same coin, but you support the coin.

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No, I would like to improve the parties from within, something you LaRouche voters don't understand.

It's things we can do. If you just want to belittle and deflect instead of making an actual argument; then so be it. But that just reflects on your own intellect.

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Oh brother....If you can't stand the heat then get out of the kitchen.

You seem to misunderstand, I don't want to buy any other State anything. We can have good economic and diplomatic relationships, we'll sell things and buy things; but that's where it ends. You want to pretend (edited to remove personal attack) that the social engineering is the worst part. It's not ideal, and it's best to control and constrain the government so that we can keep it in check. But nothing threatens long term liberty and freedom more than forever war, which is the situation we are setting up currently. Not only that, but forever war is costly as well. Y'all like to sit there and bitch left and right about our deficit, but the things which make the most sense to cut like these unnecessary wars, are the things your ilk will support. It's all "Cut NPR even though it will have no effect what so ever on our spending, but let's keep up with the wars we wasting trillions on and 1000's of American lives for no real purpose other than to establish a forever war thus lending credibility to the rapid expansion of government on all fronts".

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I think I just figured it out, you are for a borderless world aren't you?

It's as dumb as it gets. Babies whom have consumed lead paint can see how dumb it is. But whatever floats your boat I guess.

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What was that you said about intellect? You're on display here pal.

There's plenty of research to fund and technologies to improve. Drilling is only a short term solution.

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Really, care to share what is so promising out there?

While we can certainly engage in it to immediately try to reduce dependencies, we need to also note that it is not the final solution.

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THEN WHY AREN'T WE???? Explain that.

Merely a step in the direction of energy independence that will one day be replaced with something else.

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Like what? Wind? I tried that, couldn't even move my semi....NEXT!

j-mac

Grant said:

"Imminent threat" only comes into play if a President wants to start a war on an adversary and he has 60 days thereafter to take it to Congress with another possible 30 day extension.

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Did you know that the Iraq War resolution says it's the war powers act that authorizes it?
So whatever restrictions you think the WP Resolutions impose, these restrictions are imposed on OIF.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ243/html/PLAW-107publ243.htm