<p>They did. Ignoring Congress was premeditated from the start of the administration, as was finding an excuse to invade Iraq (the subject of the President’s first national security meeting). 9-11 gave the pretext and a Congress that was all too eager to step aside in the name of patriotism.</p>
<p>The administration has been trampling existing Constitutional law with their data mining of phone, e-mail, credit card, and wire transfer transactions and ignoring the FISA court process. That one is Orwellian in scope, but hugely important in developing terrorist leads. A great issue for political philosophers to debate.</p>
<p>A similar situation exists with the torture of terrorist suspects. Only that one hasn’t produced any results. The successes have come from cases where old-fashioned good cop trust was developed over time – helping a sick wife get surgery, etc. The terrorists were so trained to expect torture that they’ve never cracked. Interrogators finally told one suspect that they were going to kill his 5 and 7 year old daughters if he didn’t talk. His response, “They’ll be in a better place with Allah…”</p>
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<p>What should be worrisome to the President, Condi Rice, and George W. Bush is that the Senate war horses from both parties are working so closely together. They are able and willing to forge bipartisan compromise when the shared objective is to stick it to the administration. This Warner/Levin compromise resolution should get strong bipartisan support. That, combined with the midterm election results, should be a red-flag to the administration. However, fumes from the strange brew of arrogance and incompetence that fuels the admininstration tanks seems to cause blindness towards congessional oversight and international allies. Quite literally, these guys don’t give a …</p>
<p>They don’t. Bush has ignored more than 750 laws already (including military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research), and has cited “executive power” in every case. He has far extended his own power, according to many legal scholars.</p>
<p>Basically, we have a president who ignored the rule of law and the balance of powers. That’s what dictators do…not leaders in a democracy.</p>
Hanna, you have an entirely wrong model in your head. I don’t blame you because it seems to be a pervasive view that things were going pretty well in Iraq before the bad Americans showed up. However, this is totally wrong. The one thing that has been amazingly consistent in the poll that we were discussing before is that the Iraqi people (in particularly the Kurd/Shia majority that were oppressed) claim that inspite of the hardships and violence that currently exists, they are better off now than they were before. This is an amazing testament to just how bad things were under Saddam. Therefore, to use analogies of Nancy Pelosi as a surrogate Saddam just doesn’t come close to what Iraq has experienced under Saddam. </p>
<p>Perhaps a better example would be Vietnam after the fall to the North. With hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of South Vietnamese being imprisoned and killed, do you honestly think that they would have objected to the reappearance of US troops to restore order and stop the slaughter?</p>
<p>Of course, he is Petreaus’ boss, who says 250,000 are needed, in Baghdad alone. You would think (well, not any more, I wouldn’t) that army “intelligence” (a euphemism) would at least have their ducks in a row. Maybe they got different briefing books? </p>
<p>“Hanna, you have an entirely wrong model in your head.”</p>
<p>I was responding to hh’s sarcastic suggestion to me that I would welcome Muslim guys with guns on my street if they overthrew a “fundy” government (a term I have never used, on this board or elsewhere). I was simply turning the tables on her scenario, not proposing a comparison between Pelosi and Saddam.</p>
<p>I stand by my statement, however, that middle America would NEVER accept Arabic-speaking Muslim guys with guns telling them what to do, no matter what the circumstances, and no matter what American leader they overthrew. You can come up with whatever horrible scenario you want, including a president who gassed U.S. citizens, and I’m still saying that people here would NEVER accept an armed Saudi checkpoint when they tried to drive from Tulsa to Dallas. We’d all die trying to get rid of them before we accepted that.</p>
<p>By the way, I’m still waiting on that definition of victory that wasn’t met in 2002…</p>
<p>“By the way, I’m still waiting on that definition of victory that wasn’t met in 2002…”</p>
<p>For starters it would be an Iraq that we would not need to have constant flyovers to enforce a no-fly zone so that Saddam wouldn’t start slaughtering the Kurds or the Shiites again. It would also be a country that we would not have to fear that it would resume production of WMD to be used to dominate the region or used against us. It would also be a country free of the abuses of Saddam that must have been so bad that daily car bombings, kidnappings, tortures and murders are preferable to Saddam’s rule.</p>
<p>So here’s my question: if those are critical aspects of victory, how come two of them weren’t even mentioned until after we’d already invaded? How come the president and company only realized that those were important after we failed to find WMD’s?</p>
<p>You must not have been paying attention. There were a lot of things mentioned as rationales, but clearly the future threat of WMDs dominated the discussion.</p>
<p>AM, as you will recall, the US tried to drum up support for Darfur but the great humanitarian organzation headquarted on the NY East side (the one that we were also supposed to get support from for Iraq) gave a big yawn.</p>
<p>I was paying very close attention, thank you. I remember a State of the Union address; I remember Sec. Powell’s testimony; etc. And if getting rid of the no-fly zone was worth losing thousands of American lives over, it’s very curious that it never came up in any of the big speeches. Ditto freeing the Iraqis from the abuses of Saddam.</p>
<p>In general, I expect that causes that are more important than 3000 American soldiers’ lives to warrant serious attention, not some throwaway in a secondary speech (if indeed they were mentioned somewhere, by someone).</p>
<p>ff how do you know that the deaths of tens of thousands of iraqis, those people living in fear everyday, under OUR WATCH OUR GUARD…is what these people want</p>
<p>We promised big stuff and have FAILED ever since- what, besides the death of Saddam, have we accomlimished over there beside more death, sickness, no infrastructure, destabilization of the region, higher gas prices, angry neighbors, bad will and distrust toward America through out the world, money spent that has nothing to show for it, a country with little electricity, a pathertic army and police force, little training, American soliders damaged for life, families torn apart. good soilders FIRED because they didn’t want to keep following a failed plan (if there was even a plan), no way of leaving, a foriegn policy (if you can call it that) that is a joke, a chance of this moron taking us into another war, Afghanistan going back into Taliban hands, war profiteering, missing Billions of dollars, freedoms taken away, invasion of privacy, paranoia, a President who ignores all advice…etc etc etc</p>
<p>It is quite scary how no matter what this man does, he is God to some and can do no wrong…don’t know if that is scarier or Bush’s actions…</p>
<p>And 1.8 million highly educated, secular-oriented, non-terrorist, Muslim professionals - doctors, lawyers, teachers, business people - who are now refugees, and who will hate us forever.</p>
<p>“ff how do you know that the deaths of tens of thousands of iraqis, those people living in fear everyday, under OUR WATCH OUR GUARD…is what these people want”</p>
<p>CGM, I know that you don’t like to read and absorb things that are contrary to your view, but this has been posted a number of times. A simple answer to your question is: “because the Iraqis say so” - in a number of consistent polls - the latest of which is mini’s favorite from which to cite.</p>
<p>Also note that the survey indicates that this data included an over sample of Sunnis - hence providing a more negative view toward the US than would normally exist.</p>
<p>FF, would you like armed Muslim militiaman, patrolling your streets, hauling you over or searching you at checkpoints? Even if you hated Clinton, or will hate the next Democratic prez, you would sure prefer him/her to a puppet government, installed by Muslims, and having Muslim military in your streets, impeding your every move. You sure would hate to live without water or electricity, with your children unable to attend school. </p>
<p>Somehow, I don’t think this is so much of a stretch on my part that you would fight such a situation tooth and nail.</p>
<p>"Perhaps you didn’t read the Congressional resolution "</p>
<p>Huh, I thought we were learning this week that Congress’ opinion about the war doesn’t matter, and that it’s only the president’s decision that counts.</p>
<p>“Huh, I thought we were learning this week that Congress’ opinion about the war doesn’t matter, and that it’s only the president’s decision that counts.”</p>
<p>Your repeated question was what the definition of success would be that did not exist in 2002. I answered you. Note that what Bush said/emphasized or didn’t say/emphasize has no relevance to the answer to your question.</p>
<p>With people who believe that American can’t do anything right, there is really little point in discussion. </p>
<p>Congress’ opinion on the war doesn’t matter? They could organize legislation tomorrow to stop funding the war (a la Feingold), instead of working themselves into a tizzy over a “non-binding resolution.”</p>