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<p>I’m not very political, but this strikes me as being somewhat of une illusion de grandeur. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Welcome to the board, Gilbert. </p>
<p>That comment was meant to be self-mocking (my constant edits for grammar and the like are a source of annoyance to some, hence the self-mockery and my amusement at being accused of trying to hide something when I edit nearly every post, often multiple times). </p>
<p>But I agree it’s often hard to tell tone over the internet, particularly when one is new to a community and judging another by a handful of posts.</p>
<p>I suppose I really shouldn’t have answered the post in question at all, given that the mods really don’t want us converting threads into discussions of other posters and not the topic.</p>
<p>One other point re: Clinton vs. Bush. Under Clinton, the perpetrators of the 1st WTC bombing were caught, tried, and sent to jail. Osama – not so much. Funny how the GWB supporters always overlook that tiny fact when proclaiming that Clinton ‘did nothing’. One might also add that Clinton warned Bush that Al Qaeda was the biggest threat to the country but Bush had a doctrine that if Clinton thought it, it must be wrong. Oops.</p>
<p>Keep up the good work, Conyat!</p>
<p>I wonder if anyone actually opened the link in conyat’s first post? Or is it easier to turn every discussion about Iraq into a ‘he said, she said’ schoolyard argument? The better to air our personal disagreements than look at the facts on the ground?</p>
<p>I agree, it’s complicated. Who are these people that young Americans are sent to defend, or alternatively, kill? Who is the enemy? Which ones are the friends? Can we trust the Iraqi Prime Minister (al-Maliki)? Can we trust the police? The Iraqi military that we trained (many of whom moonlight as insurgents)? Can we trust anyone? And – can they trust us? Why should they?</p>
<p>Our “Mission Accomplished” was evidently to bring down Saddam, a dictator propped up by us (see question above: why should they trust us?). That represents mission creep from the WMD issue that served as the raison de guerre. Then we said we want to bring democracy to Iraq, and consequently were sucker-punched by the resounding electoral victory of the Shia parties in 2005, and the installation of Shia religious leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari.</p>
<p>Evidently, somebody forgot to tell the Bush administration that this result was inevitable, considering that the Shia population is 60% of Iraq. Sunni and Kurds, and other minorities, represent the remaining 40%. That election meant that Iraq became the largest Shia country in the Arab world. </p>
<p>(“Wait a minute”, say the ones still awake, “what about Iran”? Iranians aren’t Arabs. Not a minor point, in the Arab world). Howeverbut, Iranians are Shia Muslims, on steroids. It was definitely not okay in the other Arab states, like Saudi Arabia, in which the ruling party is Sunni, that Iraq be led by a Shia PM who may eventually ally with Iran. Also, it was not okay in Washington. So now we have al-Maliki, who is not a friend of Petraeus, and Bush’s NSA Dir. called him ‘deceitful and incapable of effective leadership’.</p>
<p>Think you’re confused, imagine how it feels to be Iraqi. ‘Who are these Americans, who come in here, live in fortresses but invade our homes, give out uniforms and weapons, or take them, sweep villagers off the streets and send them to Cuba (Gtmo) or parts unknown for years, speak practically no Arabic and know nothing about our religion or customs?’</p>
<p>But never mind. We don’t have to judge ourselves or each other. History will judge us, I’m sure.</p>
<p>Nicely done thumbnail, AM.</p>
<p>Laxattack, you cite the Khobar towers bombing, which killed 19 Americans, as evidence that Clinton “did nothing”, yet you seem to be unaware of the 2003 Saudi bombing attacks on westerners in Riyadh which killed dozens, including 8 Americans. There have been hundreds of terrorist attacks around the world since we invaded Iraq - a significant increase since prior to that time, even excluding the carnage in Iraq. There’s literally not room to list them all. The fact that you’re able to convince yourself that things are better than before strongly suggests a “Fox News” level of misinformation.</p>
<p>I’ve got a serious question for you: Are you aware that in 2003 a majority of Republicans who cited Fox News as their major news source believed that WMD’s had been found in Iraq after the invasion? A majority. The propaganda of the right wing in America has been very skillful, and very effective. If you don’t want to find yourself in the shoes of those people - millions of Americans - who were absolutely 100% wrong in their understanding of significant facts about the world where we were and are at war, open your mind to information which comes from outside the usual sources you rely on for information.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to fund Al-Qaeda:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.timesunion.com/ASPStories/Story.asp?StoryID=617164&Category=NATIONAL&LinkFrom=RSS&TextPage=2[/url]”>http://www.timesunion.com/ASPStories/Story.asp?StoryID=617164&Category=NATIONAL&LinkFrom=RSS&TextPage=2</a></p>
<p>In Anbar alone, it works out to around $250 million, but that doesn’t count any of the U.S. aid to Al-Qaeda that comes through Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the pro-U.S. tribal leaders are still cutting off all medical supplies coming from Jordan, using U.S. weapons to take over all medical caravans, and sell the medicines and equipment on the black market. The reason for this is that there is not enough “protection” money that can be paid that offsets the value of the medical supplies, made prohibitively expensive by the actions of the hostile, aggressive occupiers, and causing thousand of Iraqi children to die without necessary but simple medical interventions. </p>
<p>At the same time, we are funnelling hundreds of billions to Afghanistan so that Karzai’s friends in the government, as well as the Taliban, can grow opium for heroin that awaits U.S. servicemen when they return home.</p>
<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070827/ap_on_re_as/afghan_opium_explosion[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070827/ap_on_re_as/afghan_opium_explosion</a></p>
<p>There ARE weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and in Afghanistan. They are called “us”.</p>
<p>And equip them as well:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.gocomics.com/tomtoles/2007/08/07/[/url]”>http://www.gocomics.com/tomtoles/2007/08/07/</a></p>
<p>Terrorist attacks against Americans and Westerners of all stripes have occurred in virtually every presidential administration since I can remember. Rather than drawing parallels between vastly different scenarios: terrorist attacks under Clinton vs. Bush, I think it’s far more instructive to compare apples to apples. </p>
<p>Remember how Bush Sr. handled the victory of the Gulf War, same target, same population. That operation lasted 2 months plus one week. They went in with a clear objective, following UN Security Council Resolution mandates. Bush Sr. caught a lot of flak for not taking out Saddam at that time, but he stayed on-message, insisting that toppling Saddam was not the goal. But the savvy former-CIA head no doubt shrewdly realized that ruining the government would create an endless debacle (oh, and he had expert advice too)</p>
<p>Gen. Schwarzkopf ('member him?) said: “if we went on another day we were going to kill some more of our people and we had already won an overwhelming victory with a minimum of casualties and that was good enough for me”. Well, I don’t know, I’ll allow the guy a run-on sentence, since he ran a fairly succinct military op – Desert Storm.</p>
<p>Some might say we left the problem in power, others might say we should have made sure Afghanistan was clean and patrolled the Afghan-Pakistan border with greater assiduity (all signs pointed to Osama bin Laden hiding there) and left Iraq to its miseries for now. It is a truism that Iraq didn’t have an al Qaeda element before, but they sure have one now.</p>
<p>Feel safer?</p>
<p>And do not forget that in an interview preceeding the Iraq war one of OBL’s main objcetives was to lure the US armed forces into the middle east realizing that they would be sitting ducks just like the Soviet army was in Afghanistan. Oh yeah, that was the war in which the USA funnelled aid to OBL.</p>