Is it Clinton, Bush or is it Obama? Memorex SOSDDemocrat

2:40 p.m. ET | President Bush delivered remarks Friday to address the crisis in Iraq and the U.N. Security Council's resolution, defending the use of military force and calling on Saddam to back down.

"Saddam clearly lost the confidence of his own people and the legitimacy to lead. Instead of respecting the rights of his own people, Saddam chose the path of brutal suppression," the president said.

"He launched a military campaign against his own people. There should be no doubt about his intentions because he himself has made them clear," Mr. Bush said, adding that with regard to the Kurds "threatened, and I quote, 'we will have no mercy and no pity.'"

"Left unchecked, we have every reason to believe Saddam would commit atrocities against his own people...the entire region could be destabilized," he said. In response, the international community issued sanctions, but Saddam continued his campaign against the opposition.

"All attacks against civilians must stop," Mr. Bush said. "These terms are not negotiable...[the U.N.] resolution will be enforced through military action."

Addressing concerns of an already-stretched military, with troops in Yogoslavia and Afghanistan, the president said he had "no doubt" the military was capable of handling the mission but that the U.S. would not deploy ground troops to Iraq. "It is not an action we will pursue alone," he said, emphasizing on several occasions the involvement of the international community, particularly Britain and France.

"Our goal is focused, our cause is just, and our coalition is strong," he said.

The president was also careful to point out that the U.S. and its allies would provide assistance but that it would be driven by opposition groups within the country.
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Yes, who gave this speech? Clinton, Bush or Obummer.

Ten + years in Libya coming up? Yes, lets hear from the liberals staunch defenders of the Obummer, and see the hypocracy of the left.

 

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Well firstly, I'd like to make it known that I consider myself a "centrist". I don't fully 100% support any one party, leader or ideology, rather I feel most people have something of value to contribute on some fronts, and ideas I strongly disagree with on others.

Bearing that in mind, did Pres. Bush not say with absolute conviction that Saddam had WMD's and was in imminent danger of using them? Wasn't that the fundamental reason hundreds of thousands of US soldiers placed their lives and health at risk in the first place when they went in, and millions of helpless Iraqis were forced to become bystanders in a massive foreign and civil war? All they found were a few buried chemical shells from the Gulf War that even Saddam didn't know about, a far cry from all the nukes and anthrax he was supposedly hoarding. That was a pretty huge f---up, no? And how would you feel if your taxes were raised to cover the shortfall from the hundreds of billions/trillions of borrowed dollars the US has spent on this war?

Also unsubstantiated was the alleged 9/11 Al Qaeda connection used to help justify the Iraq war. Last I heard, Saddam and Bin Laden were pretty much mortal enemies on every front except for hating America. From Saddam's POV, an Arab attack on US soil would have been the quickest way to jeopardize his own power and authority (indeed, the hijackers were Saudi, but Saddam still managed to receive the bulk of the retaliation). From Bin Laden's POV, Saddam and his corrupt secular gangsterism posed major threats to the traditional Arab/Muslim lifestyle and undermined the religion altogether.

I don't understand why the Republicans aren't more outraged? Clearly someone in a high position of authority in the US said that they had found smoking gun proof of WMD's in Iraq, and they were lying outright. Whether Bush and Cheney engineered this episode or just received really horrible intelligence, someone at a very high level framed this shenanigan as a guaranteed moral and diplomatic win, and they need to be punished for the enormous suffering that has resulted. Saddam was a horrible guy, no doubt, and actions of some sort needed to be taken to undermine him, but I don't see what achievements have come out of this war that can come even close to justifying the costs for Americans and Iraqis. Do you really want this sort of moral burden hanging over your head and every other American citizen? I sure wouldn't.

Now for the situation in Libya: if America gets involved and it turns into yet another Vietnam/Iraq, I would say blame the Obama administration all the way. Personally if I were Obama, I'd approach the situation with extreme caution and only get involved if I were willing to take personal responsibility for the outcome, however bad it might unexpectedly get. My guess at this point is that US forces in the region are mostly there for show and secondary support, and it's hoped that some combination of Arab and European forces will be the ones doing most of the fighting. No one is talking about sending hundreds of thousands of troops in, no one is talking about large-scale bombing raids over civilian areas, the military objectives are very tightly limited at this point and don't even include toppling Gaddafi.

So at this stage I don't think there's any similarity whatsoever between the events in Libya and Iraq, but if the US were to ramp up its military commitment and you ended up with thousands of soldiers killed or wounded and mass civilian casualties, then the comparison would become far more appropriate.

 

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Also another crucial difference I missed: the present operation in Libya has full UN backing and even the Arab League supports it. Bush Sr. was very careful to obtain UN backing before attacking Iraq in the Gulf War, and wisely limited its objectives to liberating Kuwait.

Bush Jr., on the other hand, had next to no international support, aside from countries like Britain and Spain where the governments made decisions opposed by an overwhelming majority of their own citizens, and nations like Japan which committed non-combat troops for the rebuilding effort. He cancelled his efforts at the UN Security Council and forged ahead without its approval specifically because he knew the US would lose if it came to a vote.

 

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I think you haveit Cptbork. Keep in mind that Republicans/Tea Partiers label anyone who disagrees with them as liberal. I view my self as a fiscal conservative as I support sound fiscal policy and have actively opposed the spendthrift habits of "Deficits Don't Matter" Cheney and company, but that doesn't seem to matter to folks on the right...the very ones now claiming to be fiscal conservatives but actively supported the Republican spendthrifts while they were in office and spending the nation into a fiscal disaster and even now they continue to support those same individuals.

 

Your Cheney quote about "deficits don't matter" reminds me of a crucial quote which got Bush Jr. elected in the first place: "We're not in the business of nation building."

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Qaddafi and his followers were emboldened, like to Saddam and his followers, as Republicans Reagan and Bush Sr. weakly flinched, and did not take them out decades before, when they had the opportunity (SEE: Operation El Dorado Canyon 1986 ) . There is a reason the Reagan republicans cowarded from the task. They were no doubt bought off.
Republicans change their allegiances on a dime or more....

 

And you can provide citation of such?

Hmmmmm?

The speech I posted was Obamas except for the change of names.

Want to bet that this ends balls up, like every thing else the Democrats stick their fingers into militarily.

From the Democrats in congress, to the liberal news media, it is the liberals who obstruct, hamstring, interfere, and impede, the conduct of evey military operation that the U.S. has conducted since Vietnam.

 

CptBork, the operations in Iraq had full support from the U.N........18+ resolutions, sanctions, no fly zones, and Security Council passed Resolution 1441, a unanimous 15-0 vote; Russia, China, France, and Arab countries such as Syria voted in favor, giving Resolution 1441 wider support than even the 1990 Gulf War resolution.

 

Your attempt to vindicate Bush from running the world into the ground for his own whims, makes Bush sound like Mo Daffi more than anyone else. You could find many similarities in all maniacal incompetent leaders.

You wont find Obama saying we have to go into Libya because Qaddafi has weapons of mass destruction. You will, however find Qaddafi lying and propagandistic from the Republican play book of trying to deceitfully fool the population at all times. Let Barffalo Rube's own posts be my citation.

 

Really? Obamas using every other rational that was offered up by President Bush, and rejected by the Democrats and Liberals.

http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/us-worries-gaddafi-may-use-poisonous-gas-chaos-deepens

So you don't have a thing to back your musings, standard of liberals.

 

I checked the Wikipedia article on UN Resolution 1441, and it was quite clearly agreed amongst the diplomats who voted for it that the resolution would not be used as a pretext for military intervention. If Iraq was found to be in violation of this resolution, the US was supposed to come back to the Security Council to get approval for more drastic actions and sanctions. They never did go back to the UNSC because they knew they didn't have enough votes to win a majority, nevermind bypass French, Chinese and Russian vetoes. Most Americans today wish they would have complied with the advice of the UNSC majority, and not escalated things into a fullblown war and occupation over something which didn't really exist.

 

Yes, diplomatic word games after the fact of 18+ U.N. Resolutions, and 10+ years of Saddam doing mostly what ever He wished, why the rush by Obummer over Libya?

Obummer is still using every rational offer up by President Bush, including WMDs, and rejected by Liberals, and worded to death by U.N. Diplomats who were taking kick backs from Saddam and getting rich in the process.

Yes? I wonder just how many Millionaires were created by the Oil for Food program in the U.N, but then just how many of those same diplomats in the U.N. are already rich from skimming U.N. programs and U.S. aid to their countries, representing nations no better and in a lot of cases far worse than Gaddafi’s regime.

Can you explain that? So why the hurry and why are the excuses to reign in Gaddafi, exactly the same as those reject by the Your U.N. and Liberals since 1991 when Iraq was a Republican problem?

 

You haven't made a case, barffy. Watch and learn. Obama has not made himself the enemy. Bush did.

 

Obama's goal seems to be ending an immediate danger to the people of Libya. Saddam attacked his own people in the 80's, and again under George H. W. Bush who could have stopped it but allowed Saddam to put down the rebellion with helicopter gunships. Many people including me were in favor of regime change in Iraq, even a no-fly zone, but that doesn't mean Bush wasn't a self-serving liar, and an incompetent Commander in Chief who failed to achieve an effective coalition with European powers and pissed off most of the UN by unilaterally and illegally invading.

 

what?

Dude, Reagan supported Saddam!

http://www.counterpunch.org/dixon06172004.html

http://markadelphia.blogspot.com/2011/03/reagan-doctrine.html

He also secretly funded Iran through Ollie North (the Iran-Contra Affair):

This while Iran and Iraq were fighting a war...it seems Reagan wanted them to rip each other to pieces.

Pretty Machiavellian of the old man, don't'cha think?

Because...I believe there was a strong right-wing desire to "Finish the Job." At least I certainly saw enough bumper stickers saying that. There were quite simply a lot of people here who really just wanted to defeat Saddam Hussein (wound up by propaganda, I guess), and they really didn't care that much about the justifications.

Not only that, but I heard from people who 100% BELIEVE this! that the weapons were all smuggled to Syria, AND THAT'S WHY WE FOUND NO WEAPONS.

Why do they believe that? FOX SAID IT:facepalm:.

Yes...the American people are that deluded, that easy to lie to, and well-armed enough to knock over a country and kill hundreds of thousands.

 

Well I should point out during those 10+ years, the US and Britain were actively enforcing UN-approved no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, and that's all the US is doing in Libya at the moment (looks like France is getting in a few licks on Gaddafi's ground forces too, tho). When it was just about the no-fly zones in Iraq, I didn't see anyone really complaining other than Saddam himself, but Bush Jr.'s administration went beyond that point and initiated unilateral action which cost the US and Iraqis dearly.

I don't see where the word games come in- even Syria voted for Resolution 1441, and they were close allies of Saddam's regime. The whole idea was to accomodate US concerns about Saddam violating UN inspection agreements, without giving America the green light to go ahead with an invasion. Why did Bush Jr. initially table a new resolution at the UNSC authorizing an invasion, and then withdraw it and proceed unilaterally (together with the "coalition"), if he already had all the legal backing he needed to proceed?

I also don't see the US rushing into action this time around. If anything, the actions in Libya have come at the last minute, if not too late altogether. It's a limited action of a type the US has successfully conducted several times in the past and, at least in principle, Gaddafi's ouster is not the aim of these airstrikes, it's about preventing his airforce from massacring civilians. Most importantly, the US and its allies have big-time international support on this one. I can't recall a UN resolution authorizing military force ever having received such unilateral approval since the Korean war when the Soviets were boycotting it. The rebels have been begging for foreign intervention and the Arab League had no trouble approving it too. Regardless of the outcome, I don't believe the US will be involved in a substantial long-term combat role, and if things go south for Libyan democracy, we can legitimately say we were asked to do it by practically everyone other than Gaddafi himself.

I haven't seen Obama say anything whatsoever about Libyan WMD's, certainly not anything about WMD programs initiated since the detente in 2003.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't just liberals rejecting the rationale for the 2003 invasion, nor were all liberals opposed to invading, although obviously there was much stronger support amongst conservatives. There was pretty widespread consensus that Saddam was a sick tyrant, lots of support for economic sanctions and no-fly zones, very little support for a fullscale invasion and ground war outside the US (and now far less than 50% support even in the US itself).

As for UN kickbacks and violators of economic sanctions, I feel these are the areas where the US should have focussed its efforts, and the outcome would have been 100X better for everyone except Saddam's supporters. Several American companies were also found to be in violation of the sanctions and abusing the oil-for-food program, so there was plenty that could have been cleaned up before resorting to war. The Iraq invasion was predicated on Saddam having WMD's. In Bush Jr.'s own words: "He's got 'em". I feel those kind of absolute statements, from the world's most powerful leader, are too serious to ignore when it's been clearly shown they were incorrect. Even most Republicans wouldn't have supported a ground invasion if there had been no WMD or 9/11 premise.

I fully agree that the UN is rife with corruption and double standards. Libya itself has received praise and prominence at the UNHRC on several occasions, so this shows you how muddled the diplomatic situation is when the UN is authorizing military force against a nation championed by its own human rights council. At the same time, the UN also does a lot of very useful work and helps a lot of very desperate people in ways no one else is willing to. Besides- if, say, China was to invade Thailand or some such, under some premise, what more effective international body would be available to help contain China without going directly to war?

I do agree there are regimes out there which are just as bad if not worse than Gaddafi's, and I believe we should be enforcing economic sanctions against all of these regimes without exception. So why Libya now and no one else? I believe part of it has to do with Gaddafi using his air force against civilian protesters, part of it to do with the threats to show no mercy to regime opponents (all accounts I've read indicate most Libyan civilians are too terrified to even leave their homes). The rebels have been able to capture and hold ground, we're just there trying to oversee a ceasefire and prevent Gaddafi's air force from tipping the balance, not at all the same as sending in ground forces or bombing general regime targets in hopes of forcing the outcome. We have widespread international support to act which wouldn't be there if we wanted to bomb Bahrain, and a much greater chance of succeeding in conjunction with rebel ground forces.

Well again, I think the same excuses definitely haven't been used. Where did you get Obama saying that WMD's were part of the reason we're intervening? Right now we're at a similar stage to where Iraq was in 1991 when Bush Sr. and the UN imposed Iraq's no-fly zones. Iraq was not just a Republican problem, there was a lot of concern all around the spectrum, but no consensus on a full-scale war. Besides, if Iraq ends up in the grip of an Iranian-backed theocratic regime, and you say only Republicans wanted Saddam removed, would you like the Republicans to take ownership of the resulting mess?

 

its not diplomatic word games. its a legal document so it uses the legal form of language which is always more verbose than the lay version of language.

 

Legal Form=Word Games.

 

...And that's how the Republicans downplay the U.S. Constitution. Thanks for the citation, Barfy. Having you around saves me typing.

 

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