Budget Fun

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

But, I thought we were just continuing a war from the prior decade....I can't believe the US would invade a sovereign nation! Whatever will the world think of us? Isn't the party line that hostilities were merely on hold- that this is just a continuation of the Desert Storm action?

Why play semantics, my dear Wendy? It is an invasion brought on by constant violations of the cease fire agreement from the first Gulf War.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

It is an invasion brought on by constant violations of the cease fire agreement from the first Gulf War.

Why do you suppose that the Bush administration didn't choose to sell the war that way from the get go?

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

Why do you suppose that the Bush administration didn't choose to sell the war that way from the get go?

You see, I think he did. I think the media chose to ignore certain aspects. Yes, he claimed there were WMD. Why did he make such claims? Two reasons - our intelligence and the intelligence of our allies (and even some non-allies) said they did, and the aspects of the cease fire that would have allowed us the full and unfettered access to sites to confirm or debunk this were repeatedly violated.

In the pre invasion (or immediately post invasion) speech, he stressed this. He stressed the 17 or so UN resolutions. He did stress those aspects. The media, in their coverage, did not.

This IS how he justified the invasion.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Scrooge McSam

It does tend to lead to the kind of adversarial behavior we have running through our society these days

Who you calling adversarial, you liberal jerkwad!

[wendybeth]

I do remember him trying to use the non-compliance argument, but when the UN refused to go along with him, he began to rely more heavily on the WMD angle. Btw, Saddam was in default on the cease-fire terms, but that was up to the UN to take care of, not us. I was disgusted with their lack of enforcement, but it was not an excuse for our government to invade another country. Bush knew that the WMD argument was too weak- everyone could (and did) point out many other countries that met or exceeded the threat of Saddam Hussein.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Who you calling adversarial, you liberal jerkwad!

No more appliances for you, if that's the way you are going to be.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Well, here's the thing. Violation of the cease fire was not reason enough for the invasion. The cease fire actually called for several other diplomatic strategies. Force was only as a last resort. So, to push things towards that last resort, Bush began to invent threats.

[Scrooge McSam]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Who you calling adversarial, you liberal jerkwad!

I always preferred mentally twisted. I was charter member of that club over on another site.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

Btw, Saddam was in default on the cease-fire terms, but that was up to the UN to take care of, not us.

That's like saying it was the job of the UN to get Iraq out of Kuwait. The UN is an organization of lip service, pretty much impotent without the US to do the work. Even the EU didn't want to get their hands dirty in Bosnia, so it was up to the US to do it.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Force was only as a last resort. So, to push things towards that last resort, Bush began to invent threats.

Matter of interpretation, I suppose. When does one act on a "last resort"? And Bush invented no threats - the intelligence was pretty much the same as when his predecessor was in office and Kerry and Gore and Albright and everyone and their mother was saying Saddam was a threat with WMD. No invention there.