Cheney Tortures, Lies About Torture
It is, of course, borderline treasonous to suggest that anyone would mislead anyone about their barbaric and illegal torture activities:
Then-Vice President Dick Cheney, defending the invasion of Iraq, asserted in 2004 that detainees interrogated at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp had revealed that Iraq had trained al Qaida operatives in chemical and biological warfare, an assertion that wasn’t true.
Cheney’s 2004 comments to the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News were largely overlooked at the time. However, they appear to substantiate recent reports that interrogators at Guantanamo and other prison camps were ordered to find evidence of alleged cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein — despite CIA reports that there were only sporadic, insignificant contacts between the militant Islamic group and the secular Iraqi dictatorship.
And this is the practical problem with torture. If you know what you want people to say, you can torture them into saying it. But that’s not a process that actually enhances the quantity of accurate information in your possession.
85 Responses to “Cheney Tortures, Lies About Torture”
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May 18th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Sign the 180! Oops, I mean, Release the Cheney Memos!
And don’t forget the Clinton era indictment of Osama bin Laden which charged that al-Qaeda had agreed with Iraq to co-operate on weapon’s development.
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May 18th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Yes, Cheney has said things which are false many, many times in the past.
So obviously he is telling the truth now. I mean, he is due, right?
May 18th, 2009 at 10:52 am
over and over again, we discover just how much the bush administration believed chalabai about everything….
May 18th, 2009 at 11:02 am
McClatchey:
“The head of the Criminal Investigation Task Force at Guantanamo from 2002-2005 confirmed to McClatchy that in late 2002 and early 2003, intelligence officials were tasked to find, among other things, Iraq-al Qaida ties, which were a central pillar of the Bush administration’s case for its March 2003 invasion of Iraq.”
No doubt this Guantanamo head guy tortured prisoners on a regular basis so his testimony is suspect. Also, I don’t ever remember it being a central pillar and I distinctly remember the media reporting no link on a regular basis. Maybe anti-war and CIA leakers remember differnetly.
I remember conpiracy theories spread on the internets about Zionists and oil, etc., but I suspect Saddam was removed for the same reason the Taliban were removed. They were both very bad and “against us” in a region where a terrorist group hit us from. It’s not like the Cold War where we’d replace democracies with authoritarian regimes. Anti-war people act as if nothing changed after the Cold War ended.
Can one be against Cheney’s torture regime and be glad Saddam’s torture-state is gone at the same time? No the Iraq war was the worst disaster in human history…..
May 18th, 2009 at 11:05 am
On the other hand, if you know what you want the people you are torturing to say, you will know when to stop torturing them, so it’s more humane, right?
May 18th, 2009 at 11:06 am
over and over again, we discover just how much the bush administration believed chalabai about everything….
May 18th, 2009 at 11:07 am
DTM, 2. We’ve been over this several times before, and your continued use of that technique, depending on ‘Cheney Lies’, is evidence for the weakness of it. It is obvious that Obama could prove Cheney a liar by releasing the memos. Why doesn’t he do just that?
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May 18th, 2009 at 11:07 am
And don’t forget the Clinton era indictment of Osama bin Laden which charged that al-Qaeda had agreed with Iraq to co-operate on weapon’s development.
How can we forget something that didn’t happen?
May 18th, 2009 at 11:07 am
And yet the whole Senate – 100 to 0 – voted for the “regime change Act” against Saddam in the 90s. Clearly Saddam “wasn’t that bad.”
May 18th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Let’s face it, it really was about the oil and nothing else. The Iraq war was an effort to extend American control of the principal strategic resource. These were guys who were divvying up Iraq’s oilfields for American corporate interests two years before. These were guys sitting around telling each other that the invasion would pay for itself, and that we’d have Iraq pumping out 6 million barrels a day, and that we could use Iraq to break OPEC.
You think George Bush or Dick Cheney were objecting to Saddam’s torture state? Hell, they got off on it. They admired his ruthless persecution of his enemies. How often did Bush wish he was a dictator? They took notes from the Mukhabarat. The world was full of nasty violent little dictatorships, but all George and Dick carried about were the countries with the oil.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:12 am
poptarts, 6. Chalabi was, and still is, the Master of the Bazaar, and Sistani was, and still is, Master of the Mosque. Fail to understand that at peril to your knowledge of Iraq.
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May 18th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Kim–
Everyone already knows that Cheney is not just a liar, but a constant, self-serving liar. And that anything showing that any Cheney policy worked would have been leaked by the Cheney Administration long ago. But, oh yeah, Obama should release the documents that don’t exist, just so Cheney can then say “he didn’t release the right documents! The ones that show torture works! The ones that show the WMD are in Syria! The ones that show Saddam had drones that could reach the U.S.!” etc., etc.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Den–
Let’s face it, it really was about the oil and nothing else.
Hey, don’t forget getting re-elected and assuming permanent wartime powers….
May 18th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Sure, that was in it.
But if you look at the Bush/Cheney foreign policy, it really did consist of only a handful of childishly simple motives.
One of the principal motivators of Bush/Cheney foreign policy was engagement with and control of key strategic resources, and the only real key strategic resource was oil. Thus the coup attempt in Venezuala, engagement in Indonesia, engagement and limited intervention of the atlantic coast states of Africa. Iraq. Iran. The Persian Gulf. Afghanistan and a series of penetrations into central asian oil fields.
In stark contrast, ideological conflicts against rivals or rival ideologies didn’t register at all. Latin America lurched left, and yet it didn’t register on the Bush radar at all, with the exception of Venezuala. They just didn’t care.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Let’s face it, it really was about the oil and nothing else. The Iraq war was an effort to extend American control of the principal strategic resource. These were guys who were divvying up Iraq’s oilfields for American corporate interests two years before. These were guys sitting around telling each other that the invasion would pay for itself, and that we’d have Iraq pumping out 6 million barrels a day, and that we could use Iraq to break OPEC.
Yeah how did that turn out? Iraq is now an ally of Iran since it’s Shia majority took over. Iraq is giving oil consessions to China.
You think George Bush or Dick Cheney were objecting to Saddam’s torture state? Hell, they got off on it. They admired his ruthless persecution of his enemies. How often did Bush wish he was a dictator? They took notes from the Mukhabarat. The world was full of nasty violent little dictatorships, but all George and Dick carried about were the countries with the oil.
Yeah the world is full of nasty little dictatorships but Saddam’s was one of the worst – genocide, invading Iran, annexing Kuwait, etc. – and you object to the worst one being removed because why? Because you don’t like George Bush and Cheny? Seems self-centered to me. Did the American oil corporations get all the oil???
May 18th, 2009 at 11:26 am
I guess that’s how you create your own reality.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Calling all Toaster, 8. If you look carefully into your link you’ll find that ‘didn’t happen’ is not an adequate representation of the facts. Fitzpatrick merely couldn’t prove something told him by an informer whereas he could prove some of the other things that informer told him. I’d say that lends some credibility to the words of that informer. Granted, the informer had his information second-hand.
C-a-T, 12. Raving hysterically is not persuasive. MDT has made the same point and much more effectively. The fact remains, Cheney has specified the memos that demonstrate efficacy of ‘enhanced interrogation’ in saving American lives, and the Obama Administration has specifically refused to release them. That is a problem for Obama, as will become apparent in the days ahead.
The need for Cheney to have those memos declassified was not there until the Democrats decided to become hypocritical about the whole mess. Please, your point about that is unpersuasive in the highest degree, and evidence of panic.
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May 18th, 2009 at 11:32 am
It’s not that people are opposed to Saddam having gone away. What sane people deal with are the real world conditions and consequences of a particular war to bring that about.
If it were up to a bunch of moralizing idiots, the U.S. would be invading or help invading Burma or Zimbabwe, no matter how astoundingly worse it would make the situation and what the myriad costs and consequences would be. And rationally pointing out those real world, actually existing constraints means you love all those dictators and want to have their babies.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Dick Cheney is very opposed to the selective release of classified information; this is why he made sure to help out a CIA undercover operation gathering intelligence on WMD in the Middle East while going to the Supreme Court to keep the membership of his “Energy Task Force” secret. This man is clearly in favor of sunshine in government.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:33 am
i’m trying to figure out exactly why someone as stupid as kim apparently is has shown up to bother us: certainly it’s not because kim possesses any useful insights or information.
the specific memos that cheney is interested in are subject to a current legal procedure: admittedly, the bush administration never let little things like legal niceties get in the way of what it wanted to do, and i can see that such authoritarian touches appeal to you, but you know, that’s not how this rule of law stuff works.
as for the broader extent of sociopathy in the land, well, kim is a vivid demonstration that being a sociopath and being an idiot are related phenomenon.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Also, I don’t ever remember it being a central pillar and I distinctly remember the media reporting no link on a regular basis.
Well, you are misremembering. The central case for the Iraq invasion was that Iraq was developing WMDs with the aspiration of giving them to terrorist groups for attacks on the United States. Claiming there were links between Iraq and Al Qaeda was part of that case.
I think you may be confusing two phases of what happened in the media. From the beginning, there were a lot of people who got the impression that Iraq was actually directly involved in, and indeed perhaps the central planner of, the 9/11 attacks. The Bush Administation said a lot of things that to a casual listener sounded like that, although if you knew the truth and carefully parsed what they said, they weren’t actually making that claim. So, the media was in fact involved at an early stage in reminding people that there was no evidence of Iraq being directly involved in 9/11.
However, on the more general issue of whether Iraq was working with Al Qaeda in some way, the media did not consistently debunk that until much later, not until well after the invasion.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:37 am
el cid, you remind me that poptarts is very, very confused here: america spent buckets of iraqi and american blood and north of $1T on this excellent little adventure and we have nothing to show for it. that saddam was a barbaric dictator was neither here nor there: do we really need, at this late date, to make this frickin’ point again?
May 18th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Yeah how did that turn out? Iraq is now an ally of Iran since it’s Shia majority took over. Iraq is giving oil consessions to China.
Oh my, a childishly simplistic world strategy of resource control, implemented by incompetent thugs drunk on their own visions of power, failed spectacularly! Who would have thunk?
And now, we have the fantastic scene of utter incompetence in the pursuit of transparent goals being pleaded as proof that they weren’t really after these goals?
Yeah the world is full of nasty little dictatorships but Saddam’s was one of the worst – genocide, invading Iran, annexing Kuwait, etc. -
Hmmm. You mean like Ethiopia, with its genocidal campaigns against the Oromo, its wars on Eritreans and meddling with Somalis? Or perhaps like Sudan and Darfur? Or perhaps Indonesia, two countries successfully invaded and occupied, one still under thumb, and a whole series of genocides? And of course the Myanmar, the Uzbeks are not party princesses. But for some reason, Bush and Cheney seemed eager to get in bed with them. Oh my.
and you object to the worst one being removed because why?
Because what we replaced Saddam with was worse? There’s over a million excess deaths, an ongoing off again, on again civil war, an infrastructure in ruins, a nation reduced to wreckage? Are you one of those ‘ends justifies the means’ maniacs? How high will you pile the corpses?
I have no pity or love for Saddam Hussein. But I do acknowledge that for all his crimes, he was largely a spent force and his regime was not going to go on indefinitely. There were no new wars of conquest, he was an old man who preferred writing sappy romance novels to attending cabinet meetings. He’d left no one and nothing that could credibly replace him.
But no, we have to go in wreck the place, and then congratulate ourselves over it.
Spare me your sanctimony. Save it for the corpses.
Because you don’t like George Bush and Cheny? Seems self-centered to me.
I suppose it would be, if that superficial perspective was what I thought.
But happily, disliking Bush and Cheney, acknowledging that they were all about the oil, understanding that they failed, and appreciating the depth and magnitude of the horror that they wrought are all compatible.
Did the American oil corporations get all the oil???
The sacred secret master plan to world domination of grasping fools fails. Who’d a thunk?
May 18th, 2009 at 11:41 am
The fact remains, Cheney has specified the memos that demonstrate efficacy of ‘enhanced interrogation’ in saving American lives, and the Obama Administration has specifically refused to release them.
Both parts of this are wrong.
First, it isn’t a proven “fact” that the memos demonstrate the truth of Cheney’s claims. That is what Cheney says they will do, but only a fool would actually take Cheney at his word these days.
Second, the Obama Administration has not “specifically refused to release them.” Again, that is Cheney’s spin, but the truth is simply that Cheney’s request is one of a very large number of requests currently going through a very complex process, and probably we will see those memos eventually. It just isn’t going to happen when Cheney demands it–he doesn’t have that sort of power anymore.
But in the end, I actually really don’t care how easy Cheney still finds it to delude people like kim. So carry on, kim–obviously no one has ever looked foolish standing up for Cheney, so you are on safe ground.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:44 am
DTM:
However, on the more general issue of whether Iraq was working with Al Qaeda in some way, the media did not consistently debunk that until much later, not until well after the invasion.
That’s just flat out wrong. Anyone with a brain knew there was no connection and the media repeatedly reported it. Anyone with an objective view will remember that.
The anti-war faction played up the fact that Bush was spreading lies and that half of Americans believed it, but they did b/c those that believed the connection are morons, not b/c of the media.
The fact of the matter is that the anti-war faction would rather discuss technicalities like this than the obvious fact that it’s good Saddam is good.
He was a war-mongering dictator who ran a torture state and threatened his neighbors. He was sitting on the world’s second or third largest oil reserves. The fact that the Bushies were looking for an Iraqi -al Qaeda connection won’t change these facts.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Whew, I just checked the calendar and confirmed that it is in fact 2009. I was worried about timewarps, given that there’s still someone with the breathtaking mendacity to pooh-pooh how central putative al Qaeda – Iraq links were to the Bush administration’s case for war. What’s next, shrieking about the “smoking gun” of a few completely unneeded additional tons of yellowcake from Niger? Oh, wait, we’ve already revisted that combination of lies and dumbshittery, haven’t we? Let’s move on: Hey, I hear all the millions of Saddam’s WMDs actually got smuggled across the border into Syria / Jordan / Iran / Venezuela before the invasion! Er, that is, Saddam was a brutal dictator, and the US always removes brutal dictators from power. Just ask Pinochet and the Shah.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:47 am
I have no pity or love for Saddam Hussein
No you just wish he was still in power. And you just dislike Bush more.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Hmmm. You mean like Ethiopia, with its genocidal campaigns against the Oromo, its wars on Eritreans and meddling with Somalis? Or perhaps like Sudan and Darfur? Or perhaps Indonesia, two countries successfully invaded and occupied, one still under thumb, and a whole series of genocides? And of course the Myanmar, the Uzbeks are not party princesses. But for some reason, Bush and Cheney seemed eager to get in bed with them. Oh my.
Always bring it back to Bush and Cheney. You seemed preoccupied with them.
Okay, Sudan, Ethiopia, Burma, Uzbeks, Saddam. All or none? Howbout one? Howbout Saddam. For me, it’s better one is gone than none. Bringing in Bush is besides the point.
Hmmm, but you wish Saddam was still in power….
May 18th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Whew, I just checked the calendar and confirmed that it is in fact 2009.
It’s b/c the anti-war faction can’t let go of their Bush-hate. And the torturers want to point to Iraq as the bigger mistake.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:53 am
poptarts, your drivel doesn’t scare me: given the choice of leaving saddam in power or causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of iraqis (and the exit of millions more) and thousands of americans (with many more seriously wounded) while spending north of $1T with no gain in american national security, i pick leaving saddam in power.
that’s called cost-benefit analysis, and is a basic tool adults use to navigate the world.
if you want to live a comic-book existence, that’s your choice, but don’t expect to be taken seriously.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:54 am
If you don’t think the best way to deal with this horrid dictatorship is to destroy the country and launch a massive civil war and have to occupy it for decades, you love Saddam and want to have his babies.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Have a care, Poptart, civilitly is a reciprocal virtue, and there are nastier things than you about.
Do I wish he was still in power? No. Do I dance a jig upon his death? Yes. I danced a jig for Duvalier and Trujillo, Pinochet and Suharto, and all that loathesome vermin. If there is a god, I commend them to his justice, and if there is no god, I consign them to oblivion.
On the other hand, do I recognize that the consequences of getting rid of Saddam in the manner and fashion accomplished have been disastrous for Iraq? Oh yes. I can look at Iraq and see a million extra fatalities, and four million refugees, I can look at Iraq and see ethnic cleansing and genocide in Baghdad, mini-regimes of psychotic fundamentalists, armed militias running wild, an infrastructure in perpetual deterioration, electrical power generation that has for years been well below Saddam’s levels, potable water access declining, crime so rampant that children can no longer go to school, an economy wrecked to shreds, a professional class fled. The Iraqi’s will be generations recovering from what we have done to them.
Are you proud of this? Can you possibly believe that all this is good? Can you look at a million dead and four million refugees and pronounce this an improvement?
As nearly as I can tell, your choice is to simply ignore all of these horrors and blithely accuse me of wanting to be Saddam’s friend. I am very near being offended.
As for Bush, he has my unalloyed contempt. But I do not equate him with Saddam Hussein.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Whoa, newsflash, some people hold the United States of America and its elected leaders to a higher standard. They must be deranged, or something. Not like Poptarts, who prefers selectively invading countries run by bad people under false pretenses, and then spending years lying about the pretenses. What’s next, lefties, thinking that it reflects poorly on the US to adopt torture practices from the Khmer Rouge?
(Seriously, “you wish Saddam was [sic] still in power” is so 2004. You really need to have them fax you the updated talking points about socialists, teabags, and leaving the country vulnerable to attack by cutting back on torture. Though apparently “b-b-b-but Clinton!” is never going out of style.)
May 18th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Hmmm. You mean like Ethiopia, with its genocidal campaigns against the Oromo, its wars on Eritreans and meddling with Somalis? Or perhaps like Sudan and Darfur? Or perhaps Indonesia, two countries successfully invaded and occupied, one still under thumb, and a whole series of genocides? And of course the Myanmar, the Uzbeks are not party princesses. But for some reason, Bush and Cheney seemed eager to get in bed with them. Oh my.
Always bring it back to Bush and Cheney. You seemed preoccupied with them.
Okay, Sudan, Ethiopia, Burma, Uzbeks, Saddam. All or none? Howbout one? Howbout Saddam. For me, it’s better one is gone than none. Bringing in Bush is besides the point.
Well, to be perfectly fair, they were the guys who made the mess.
All or none? Howbout one? Sure. But then again, I’d like a little consistency. If Bush and Cheney have such an elevated moral perspective that they need to remove monsters… then perhaps they shouldn’t balance their karma by supporting other monsters? It was Bush and Cheney who got in bed with Uzbekistan’s dictator and greenlit Ethiopia’s invasions. Who were perfectly willing to embrace Indonesia and Myanmar. And more than prepared to ignore Darfur.
I understand that we cannot fight every monster, and that its probably a good thing to knock the occasional one off. But if we’re going to moralize our foreign policy, then shouldn’t that be a consistent morality? At the very least, we shouldn’t be embracing and supporting monsters.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
wow- – these threads are under an all-out assault of the stupid today.
between mark marano’s “kim”, the rnc’s “al”, and the aptly named ‘poptart’, it’s like a triple threat of clueless!
poor matt.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
More Saddam lovers in the librul medja.
I’m sorry these whiny doctors being so inconvenienced right now, but the article says things in some ways are getting better than they were during the worst of the post-invasion collapse, but, you know, omelets, eggs, Saddam boot-lickers, etc.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
On the other hand, do I recognize that the consequences of getting rid of Saddam in the manner and fashion accomplished have been disastrous for Iraq? Oh yes. I can look at Iraq and see a million extra fatalities, and four million refugees, I can look at Iraq and see ethnic cleansing and genocide in Baghdad, mini-regimes of psychotic fundamentalists, armed militias running wild, an infrastructure in perpetual deterioration, electrical power generation that has for years been well below Saddam’s levels, potable water access declining, crime so rampant that children can no longer go to school, an economy wrecked to shreds, a professional class fled. The Iraqi’s will be generations recovering from what we have done to them.
What “we” did? Actually al Qaeda-in-Iraq is doing a lot of it as are former Baathist, Sunnis who miss lording over the majority Shia and Kurds.
And I could see how the average American could be confused about Al Qaeda in Iraq and the regular 9/11 al Qaeda, such as fact strictly speaking they are unrelated. But the former did take the “al Qaeda” name.
All of what you say about Iraq could be said about Afghanistan which liberals support.
Rumsfeld and them didn’t want the oil. They just wanted to get rid of Saddam and didn’t think about the aftermath.
And in the long run Iraq and the Middle East could be better off with out Saddam. We’ll never know. You can never prove it. I think generally speaking getting rid of war mongering dictators is a good thing, but some seem to disagree. Because war is bad. Or something.
I don’t love the Iranian theocracy but I think war against it would be a disaster that would make Iraq look like a picnic. It wouldn’t be worth it. Plus Iran never invaded anyone nor annexed members of the UN, they just support terrorist groups. But they aren’t stupidly suicidal as Saddam was. He should not dicked around the weapons inspectors. He shouldn’t have bluffed about WMDs.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Saddam shouldn’t have bluffed about WMDs, especially after 9-11.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
By Corinne Reilly | McClatchy Newspapers
What, is McClatchy the new Peacenik News Network?
May 18th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
we can now officially declare poptarts a complete moron after 12:24, since what saddam actually said was that he didn’t have any WMDs, which, of course was not only correct but in the process of being verified by hans blix until bush and cheney got bored….
May 18th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I’m sensing some mysterious connection between these two paragraphs, but there can’t be, because it’s posed as though they were points in opposition, so, you know, you can’t magically change anything like that.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Has everyone forgot McClatchy calling the great Dope-In in 2004 where they tried to levitate the Pentagon via exhaling marijuana smoke? That was awesome.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
On the other hand, do I recognize that the consequences of getting rid of Saddam in the manner and fashion accomplished have been disastrous for Iraq? Oh yes. I can look at Iraq and see a million extra fatalities, and four million refugees, I can look at Iraq and see ethnic cleansing and genocide in Baghdad, mini-regimes of psychotic fundamentalists, armed militias running wild, an infrastructure in perpetual deterioration, electrical power generation that has for years been well below Saddam’s levels, potable water access declining, crime so rampant that children can no longer go to school, an economy wrecked to shreds, a professional class fled. The Iraqi’s will be generations recovering from what we have done to them.
What “we” did? Actually al Qaeda-in-Iraq is doing a lot of it as are former Baathist, Sunnis who miss lording over the majority Shia and Kurds.
Because its nothing to do with us? We bombed them with fluffy pillows and left right away? We didn’t target infrastructure? We didn’t fail to implement security?
And of course, none of this ongoing disaster wasn’t obvious and forseeable? Come on Poptart, you’re being evasive.
And I could see how the average American could be confused about Al Qaeda in Iraq and the regular 9/11 al Qaeda, such as fact strictly speaking they are unrelated. But the former did take the “al Qaeda” name.
Now you’re being ignorant. Al Quaeda in Iraq didn’t exist until two or three years into the occupation. There was nothing to confuse the average American about. Or are you disingenuous.
All of what you say about Iraq could be said about Afghanistan which liberals support.
I’m not actually a fan of the Afghanistan mission. Are you?
Rumsfeld and them didn’t want the oil. They just wanted to get rid of Saddam and didn’t think about the aftermath.
But Don Rumsfeld was Saddam Hussein’s best pal! Remember, there are pictures of them shaking hands.
And if Don Rumsfeld and bunch were so morally repulsed by Saddam, why did they give money and weapons and military support to an equally brutal bunch in Ethiopia, or get in bed in Uzbekistan with a man who enjoyed boiling his victims alive in oil?
You see, this is my problem with you and your bunch. It’s not that your outraged by Saddam, that seems rational. But in the same breath, you rush to embrace and support monsters just as bad.
I could understand it if you and your type said “We’re going to do something about Saddam, and even if we can’t do something about Uzbekistan and Ethiopia, we’re sure as hell not going to support them.” That would be a morally consistent stance.
But instead, you plead morality, and then you embrace thugs with blood up to their elbows. I smell hypocrisy.
And in the long run Iraq and the Middle East could be better off with out Saddam. We’ll never know. You can never prove it. I think generally speaking getting rid of war mongering dictators is a good thing, but some seem to disagree. Because war is bad. Or something.
‘Or something’ would be simple cost/benefit analysis? A long view?
I’m afraid that I’m getting closer to being offended. Our views have been put forward carefully. You refuse to acknowledge them, you simply repeat childish slurs.
I don’t love the Iranian theocracy but I think war against it would be a disaster that would make Iraq look like a picnic. It wouldn’t be worth it.
A small breath of sense! But somehow, the Iraq mess was worth it? In the end, my dear, you damn yourself. You’re just as much a monster as Saddam Hussein in your heart. You look at a million dead and four million refugees, and you think… worth it.
But they aren’t stupidly suicidal as Saddam was. He should not dicked around the weapons inspectors. He shouldn’t have bluffed about WMDs.
Does it bother you to lie all the time?
May 18th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Howard, if you look it up on wikipedia or in books or wherever you’ll find Saddam dicked around the weapons inspectors. He bluffed against internal and external enemies. But apparently you have preconceived notions.
If Bush and Cheney et al were as venal as everyone makes them out to be, they would have planted WMDs. But they didn’t. Their crime was not thinking about the aftermath. They didn’t consider themselves libeal humanitarian social worker nation builders. Let Iraqis sort themselves out, which they did. Which they did to the war planners surprise.
@Den Valdron, there were conspiracy theorists already saying Sudan was about oil. If anthing was done about Sudan militarily the anti-war faction would have complained about. Actually the callousness about Sudan is the default mode. Iraq was a post-911 anomaly.
It’s not like the Cold War where we’d replace democracies with dictatorships. Post-Cold War it’s different. It’s about keeping the oil markets stable so Capitalism can keep on keepin on. That’s different from imperialism.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
The test that they’re lying is that, as Scripture has it, nobody hides their light under a bushel basket. Cheney denies torture but claims that not torturing will compromise security. Now, logically either they tortured or they didn’t. Now, Cheney has no capacity for shame, but he does know that normal sensibilities are appalled by torture. So he dissembles and is “cute” about it. He’s lying with a wink.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Poptarts, Bush and Cheney lied and tortured people to justify a war with Iraq. These are settled facts, and nothing Saddam changes them. Turns out Saddam told the truth about WMD, Hans Blix and Mohammed El Baredi were 100% right and America was 100% wrong. Clinton got impeached for lying about an affair in a frivolous civil suit. But you think the liberals are upset about Iraq just because they don’t like Bush? Really, have you no pride in your nation? No standards you think it should hold itself to? No sense of shame?
I don’t say this often, but seriously, you’re a flaming idiot.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
poptarts, if you insist upon taking your information from bush and cheney, you’ll believe any old stupidity. if you take your information from hanx blix, you’ll know that he noted that saddam was basically cooperative.
and if you know anything, you’ll know that we used the ’90s era weapons inspection regime to spy on saddam, which he well knew, which conceivably had something to do with his not being perfectly cooperative.
as for preconceived notions: you really ought to understand the meaning of words before you attempt to apply them. a “preconceived notion” in this context would be something along the lines of “i’m sure that saddam would never give the weapons inspectors a hard time.”
but that, of course, is not what i’m saying: what i’m saying is that, in real time, one heard saddam say he didn’t have WMDs, and one heard Hans Blix verifying that, and one heard the bush-cheney administration sure that saddam was bsing and therefore enough inspections, let’s party. the only place “preconceived” applies in that context is to the bush-cheney part.
as for your general “were as venal as everyone makes them out to be,” the people who wiretapped milliions of americans and instituted torture as an instrument of national security policy is about as venal as one would hope to find in the oval office, so i have no idea what you’re talking about. save the babble for the people who like such foolishness over there in dead-ender land.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
If Bush and Cheney et al were as venal as everyone makes them out to be, they would have planted WMDs. But they didn’t.
Sorry. Judith Miller was shown WMDs that turned out to be nothing.
There’s always evidence.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Howard, if you look it up on wikipedia or in books or wherever you’ll find Saddam dicked around the weapons inspectors. He bluffed against internal and external enemies. But apparently you have preconceived notions.
Not at all. What we do have is a certain intolerance for typical right wing spin.
The argument that Saddam tried to pretend he had wmd’s and thus fooled us, is not worth considering. Iraq’s public policy and protests were consistently that it did not have wmds.
There was resistance to inspections during the Clinton era, and this resistance was based largely on objections to searches of Saddam’s palaces and residences as well as on Iraqi objections that the US had infiltrated the inspection program and was using it as a platform to seek intelligence for targetting (true), and to foment an insurrection (also true).
However, Saddam did not throw the inspectors out. They were withdrawn by Clinton as a preamble to the bombing operations known as Operation Desert Fox. Subsequently, Saddam declined to allow inspectors back, arguing (truthfully) that they would be used for American intelligence gathering.
Under Bush, Saddam allowed inspectors in and gave them free run, up to and including his own palaces and he gave them access to sites identified by the CIA. He did this not because he was a good guy, but because he had to.
Again, the Inspectors were pulled out, not because Saddam kicked them out, but because Bush needed to get his war on.
During this period, Iraq constantly denied wmds, and submitted thousands of pages to the UN in the form of declarations to prove it.
In short, poptart, you are trading in dishonest nonsense.
If Bush and Cheney et al were as venal as everyone makes them out to be, they would have planted WMDs. But they didn’t.
And how were they going to accomplish this? Particularly with the whole world watching, intelligence agencies active, and journalists crawling all over. Magic up some wmd’s, and what’s the risk of being caught?
Their crime was not thinking about the aftermath. They didn’t consider themselves libeal humanitarian social worker nation builders. Let Iraqis sort themselves out, which they did. Which they did to the war planners surprise.
Which is why Garner was thrown out for planning elections for the Iraqi’s? Which is why Bremer ruled as viceroy, voided municipal elections, and implemented a series of laws and measures, including privatisation of state industry, no tariffs or customs duties, no bid contracts for reconstruction to American companies, a flat tax, etc. etc. Which is why the United States ruled Iraq directly for as long as it could, before moving towards a succession of Brown faces to rule behind?
Poptart, its not that you tell lies. It’s the fact that the lies you tell are old, stale and long discredited. And its the fact that you can’t even be bothered to defend these lies. You merely toss them out one after the other, dead rotting fish lying in the sun to stink up the place.
Get better lies.
@Den Valdron, there were conspiracy theorists already saying Sudan was about oil. If anthing was done about Sudan militarily the anti-war faction would have complained about. Actually the callousness about Sudan is the default mode. Iraq was a post-911 anomaly.
I’ve barely talked about Sudan. Perhaps you can explain Bush’s affection for a man who boiled people in oil, alive? Or a petty third world dictatorship with a penchant for genocide and war on its neighbors?
May 18th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Funny. Even Cheney’s buddies don’t say, straight out, we should have tortured to find the Iraq al qaeda link. Why not come out foursquare for your sick little project?
Of course, we all know that opposing an invasion was, of course, not opposinng other, better, less bloody ways to have deposed Saddam. What happened in the invasion? Saddam’s structure fell in two weeks. It was that weak. The better plan, then, now, would have been: ally with Iran by tearing up the double sanction regime. Send a lot of money to Northern Iraq so that the Kurds could build up an prosperous neighboring state. Review which sanctions work. And wait. The sanctions would not work against both Iran and Iraq, but embracing Iran would have put an end to Saddam’s support even among the Ba’ath elite. Saddam was pathetically weak. Even that idiot Chris Hitchens shifted his defense of the war from Saddam being a threat to Saddam being so weak that his fall threatened chaos.
Pretty simple. Instead, the U.S. kept up its nutty enmity towards Iran while handing them the country of Iraq. Excellent move, facilitating the election of Ahmenadijad plus a Shia theocracy in Baghdad. At a trillion to trillion and a half dollar cost. Why was this done? Many reasons. One domestic reason was to please a base of which we get a sample every day in MY’s comments. A base of the worst and the dimmest.
At least Bush gets a twofer – worst president economically since Hoover, worst foreign policy president ever.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Yeah the world is full of nasty little dictatorships but Saddam’s was one of the worst – genocide, invading Iran, annexing Kuwait, etc. – and you object to the worst one being removed because why?
Wait, I’m confused — is invading Iran now supposed to be a bad thing? I thought it was a good thing….?
May 18th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Strangely, I think this reveals more of their incompetence than it does their lack of venality.
After all, they were all down with using forged documents, via apparently right wing Italian intelligence operatives (which may have been introduced through the help of Michael Ledeen) about the fraudulent story of Iraq trying to sneak hundreds of tons of low grade uranium out of a French facility in Niger and through the U.S. border and no-fly-zone controls while restarting a massive industrial uranium processing program during IAEA inspections which supposedly had complete control over Iraq’s existing thousands of tons of uranium.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I’ve barely talked about Sudan. Perhaps you can explain Bush’s affection for a man who boiled people in oil, alive? Or a petty third world dictatorship with a penchant for genocide and war on its neighbors?
Again you think Saddam was “petty.” I don’t. People can judge.
“Iraq’s public policy and protests were consistently that it did not have wmds.”
You’re the most gullible man on the planet. Or a hippy dippy peacenik.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Did he just say “hippy dippy peacenik”? REALLY? Or am I having some kind of flashback?
May 18th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Bullsmith:
Poptarts, Bush and Cheney lied and tortured people to justify a war with Iraq. These are settled facts, and nothing Saddam changes them. Turns out Saddam told the truth about WMD, Hans Blix and Mohammed El Baredi were 100% right and America was 100% wrong. Clinton got impeached for lying about an affair in a frivolous civil suit. But you think the liberals are upset about Iraq just because they don’t like Bush? Really, have you no pride in your nation? No standards you think it should hold itself to? No sense of shame?
You’re asking if I have no pride in my nation? All I know is your type, which I’ve come across on many occasion, is anti-American. America is presumed guilty. Saddam is presumed innocent. Despite his long record. I’m not giving America a pass given its history, but I don’t presume guilt as your type does every single time.
If you objectively look at the record, Saddam was dicking around the weapons inspectors for a decade since the first Gulf War. I’m not going to waste my time citing sources on peaceniks like you.
People who wanted to give Saddam more time were being disengenuous. A decade is a enough time. He did himself in, he should have cooperated after 9-11.
One thing: we now know for sure that Saddam didn’t have WMDs. Before it was just speculation. And we ended the sanctions.
Plus we gave Iran Iraq which I would think would make you happy. You would think, but no it’s just used as another way to slag Bush. It’s all about Democrats versus Republicans.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Also, Bullsmith and assorted peaceniks,
At least I’m consistently against torture. I voted for Obama against Cheney’s torture regime and I’m not unhappy that Saddam’s torture-state is gone. I won’t be euphemistic about Saddam just b/c he’s a third world dictator who Bush and company didn’t like.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
And it’s typical, present people with facts and opinion which differ from their preconceived notions, and they reach for the ad hominem.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Poptarts
I don’t think anyone accused you being euphemistic, nor of being inconsistent. Den called you a liar and I called you an idiot. Both charges seem solidly based on the merits of your arguments.
But hey, good for you for being against torture.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Den Valdron:
I’m not actually a fan of the Afghanistan mission. Are you?
Why am I not surprised. I think the Taliban should have givein up OBL. Like Saddam they were stupid.
Well the Tamil Tigers were just decapitated and that 25 year war is over. I think Obama has the right idea with the new general, but I do think we should try to nation build. I’m a bleeding heart, but I think when we’re callous and we let states fail, like we did with Afghanistan, we get 9-11s in return.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I don’t think anyone accused you being euphemistic, nor of being inconsistent. Den called you a liar and I called you an idiot. Both charges seem solidly based on the merits of your arguments.
Calling people names is the typical response by your type when confront with facts. It’s why people close their comments sections. It’s a way to shut down debate.
Plus some people, like you presumably, get emotional satisfaction from being a prick. You sure told that warmonger off! Good for you buddy!
May 18th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I’ve barely talked about Sudan. Perhaps you can explain Bush’s affection for a man who boiled people in oil, alive? Or a petty third world dictatorship with a penchant for genocide and war on its neighbors?
Again you think Saddam was “petty.” I don’t. People can judge.
Actually, I wasn’t referring to Iraq, though if you were irredeemably stupid and didn’t actually read what I’d written, I could see how you’d think so. I was referring to Ethiopia and Indonesia, two countries with histories of genocide and invasions of their neighbors. Particularly in the case of Ethiopia, your Mr. Bush helped underwrite that countries invasion.
“Iraq’s public policy and protests were consistently that it did not have wmds.”
You’re the most gullible man on the planet. Or a hippy dippy peacenik.
Either is possible. But on the other hand, in this case, I happen to be right.
You girl, on the other hand, are a conniving, dishonest, hypocritical trollop, ever ready to excuse atrocity. Your ‘moral’ perspective is nothing more than infantile tribalism… The truth is that your big objection to Saddam Hussein is that he was merely the flavour of the week, and the truth is that you don’t care about millions of Iraqi’s dead or exiled.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Did not favor a horrific and fraudulently justified war as a particular policy approach = “wanted to give Saddam more time.”
Life is a comic book.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
The truth is that your big objection to Saddam Hussein is that he was merely the flavour of the week, and the truth is that you don’t care about millions of Iraqi’s dead or exiled.
See this is the callous casual attitude I’m referring to. You don’t care about the Iraqis or any other foreigners, you just want a stick to beat on Bush and the Republicans with.
Saddam Hussein invades Iran? Disastrous ten year war? He’s not that bad.
Genocide against the Kurds? He’s not that bad.
Invade and annex Kuwait, a member of the United Nations? He’s not that bad.
The minority Sunni Baathists use torture and assassination to maintain their control over the majority Shia and Kurds? Torture only matters if our governmetn do it.
But yeah you don’t like the fact the Taliban were removed either, b/c your’e a typical anti-American prick. Either malevalent or naive, I don’t know which. Definitely spoiled.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Please release the memos Cheney requested. Just add it to the pile of stuff pointing to the fact that Cheney did in fact order torture.
Awesome… it worked.
Awesome… Cheney is playing his hand and showing that that he knew that we were torturing people into giving us information. Again, his knowledge of these memos showing tortures effectiveness shows that he knew we were torturing and did nothing to stop it (*he probably ordered it, but at present his admission of knowledge of these war crimes is sufficient for me, the rest will come out in time).
Extra awesome… regardless of how people want to spin it, torture was then and is now illegal regardless of its effectiveness.
Awesomest…Send him to jail along with anyone else who was involved for the war crimes they committed.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Poptarts, ad hominem goes both ways. You slung plenty of personal insult around this thread before I decided to climb down in the gutter and call you what you are.
So it turns out you’re a lying idiot hypocrite who hurls insults and cries when insulted. Also turns out you think you can read people’s minds and impugn their motives.
But hey, you still got that stand against torture going.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Give it a rest, Poptart. Your half baked hypocrisy does you no favours.
You think you can win an argument by attributing things to me that I never said?
You project your own dishonesty forward and claim I’m a typical anti-american prick?
Why is that? Because I won’t sit here quietly and listen to you recycle tired out lies.
What’s your big contribution to this discussion? Saddam was BAAAAAAD you whine, like a five year old. Therefore anything that involves getting rid of Saddam is GOOOOOD!!!! Give me a break.
Of course, if we point out that matters have gotten worse… well, you ignore it, because really you don’t care. You’re perfectly happy to burn the world down with your own set of matches, without a damned bit of regard to your own pompous morality.
And you call me spoiled.
I’m laughing here.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
poptart, for the record, you haven’t brought up a single useful “fact” relevant to this discussion: you’ve repeated a bunch of right-wing drivel.
and if you don’t like our “type,” whatever that may mean, i’m here to say that there’s a whole big ol’ internet out there: you can go find some “types” you do like and share your blather together. life will go on perfectly well here without you.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Let’s not forget, Poptart, that you started this ‘at least we got rid of Saddam’ line to divert us all from the fact that Cheney’s a filthy torturer, and that he’s telling new lies to try and whitewash his unsavoury history.
Ultimately girl, you’re a second rate troll. Seriously, you should take lessons from some of the better trolls like Shooter. He knows how to do it. He shows up, says something moronic, and then vanishes.
You cling to your dishonesty.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Can one be against Cheney’s torture regime and be glad Saddam’s torture-state is gone at the same time? No the Iraq war was the worst disaster in human history…..
If you ignore the dead. If you ignore the dead Hitler’s 40 million dead weren’t so bad. But it’s absurd to look at it that way.
May 18th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Let’s not forget, Poptart, that you started this ‘at least we got rid of Saddam’ line to divert us all from the fact that Cheney’s a filthy torturer, and that he’s telling new lies to try and whitewash his unsavoury history.
Ultimately girl, you’re a second rate troll. Seriously, you should take lessons from some of the better trolls like Shooter. He knows how to do it. He shows up, says something moronic, and then vanishes.
You cling to your dishonesty.
You’re the typical anti-American peacenik. This whole thing is the CIA’s attempt to divert attention away from torture to Iraq. (why not Afghanistan?)
The story is no longer about torture but is instead about Iraq and “Bush’s drive to war.” That’s what’s happening.
I am against torture. Before, I agreed with Obama who wanted to look forward and not look back and work on implementing his program. But now with the Republicans going on and on and on about Pelosi I think there should be a full accounting. The Senate Intelligence committe will have a report in the fall which will implicate the CIA no doubt. It should be followed where it leads and there should be a 9-11 -type commission. Pelosi says bring it on, and we should. I’m a cynic and feel Pelosi knew but felt she couldnt’ do anything.
The CIA should have covered its ass better, instead they are now crying about how they were given mixed messages. Well boo fucking hoo.
The CIA leaking to McClatchey/Peacenet is saying Bush/Cheney tortured to connect Iraq and al Qaeda. It’s diverting. Who cares the reasons, torture is torture.
You and Bullsmith’s arguments were horrible. Horrible trolling. I can see the logic of the peacenik arguments of El Cid who admit Saddam was bad and admit he was dicking around the weapon inspectors, but still feel it wasn’t worth it. That’s an argument with facts and consistency however much I disagree with it. You and Bullsmith are just childish with your “Bush and Cheney are evil” arguments. Everyone who doesn’t agree with me is a baby-killer. War is bad!
Republicans are evil! You’re a moron who does a disservice to “your side.”
May 18th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Bullsmith:
Poptarts, ad hominem goes both ways. You slung plenty of personal insult around this thread before I decided to climb down in the gutter and call you what you are.
So it turns out you’re a lying idiot hypocrite who hurls insults and cries when insulted. Also turns out you think you can read people’s minds and impugn their motives.
But hey, you still got that stand against torture going.
Yeah once an expert troll like you jumps in and starts throwing shit around and wiping it all over themselves like a baby, I’ll succumb and give up on “dialogue” and start throwing it back. That’s what you wanted, right, tough guy?
And you say I started it? That’s what all the trolls say.
Lying idiot hypocrite? That’s the nicest thing someone has said all day. All because I think Saddam was a bad guy?
I think what happens is that when I say “Saddam is a bad guy” you take it as a personal insult because it clashes with your world view. It’s like a middle finger, so you overreact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein
“As president, Saddam maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) and the first Persian Gulf War (1991). During these conflicts, Saddam repressed movements he considered threatening to the stability of Iraq, particularly Shi’a and Kurdish movements seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, respectively. Whereas some Arabs looked upon him as a hero for his aggressive stance against foreign intervention and for his support for the Palestinians, many Arabs and western leaders vilified him for his murdering of the Kurdish people of the north and his invasion of Kuwait.”
“As a sign of his consolidation of power, Saddam’s personality cult pervaded Iraqi society. Thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals were erected in his honor all over Iraq. His face could be seen on the sides of office buildings, schools, airports, and shops, as well as on Iraqi currency. Saddam’s personality cult reflected his efforts to appeal to the various elements in Iraqi society. He appeared in the costumes of the Bedouin, the traditional clothes of the Iraqi peasant (which he essentially wore during his childhood), and even Kurdish clothing, but also appeared in Western suits, projecting the image of an urbane and modern leader. Sometimes he would also be portrayed as a devout Muslim, wearing full headdress and robe, praying toward Mecca.”
“At this point [during the Iran-Iraq war], Saddam asked his ministers for candid advice. Health Minister Dr Riyadh Ibrahim suggested that Saddam temporarily step down to promote peace negotiations. Initially, Saddam Hussein appeared to take in this opinion as part of his cabinet democracy. A few weeks later, Dr Ibrahim was sacked when held responsible for a fatal incident in an Iraqi hospital where a patient died from intravenous administration of the wrong concentration of Potassium supplement.
Dr Ibrahim was arrested a few days after he started his new life as a sacked Minister. He was known to have publicly declared before that arrest that he was “glad that he got away alive.” Pieces of Ibrahim’s dismembered body were delivered to his wife the next day.”
“On March 16, 1988, the Kurdish town of Halabja was attacked with a mix of mustard gas and nerve agents, killing 5,000 civilians, and maiming, disfiguring, or seriously debilitating 10,000 more. (see Halabja poison gas attack) The attack occurred in conjunction with the 1988 al-Anfal campaign designed to reassert central control of the mostly Kurdish population of areas of northern Iraq and defeat the Kurdish peshmerga rebel forces.”
“In August 2, 1990, Saddam invaded and annexed Kuwait, a member of the United Nations, thus sparking an international crisis. Just two years after the 1988 Iraq and Iran truce “Saddam Hussein did what his Gulf patrons had earlier paid him to prevent.” Having removed the threat of Iranian fundamentalism he “overran Kuwait and confronted his Gulf neighbors in the name of Arab nationalism and Islam.”"
“As one U.S. Muslim observer noted: People forgot about Saddam’s record and concentrated on America…Saddam Hussein might be wrong, but it is not America who should correct him.” A shift was, therefore, clearly visible among many Islamic movements in the post war period “from an initial Islamic ideological rejection of Saddam Hussein, the secular persecutor of Islamic movements, and his invasion of Kuwait to a more populist Arab nationalist, anti-imperialist support for Saddam (or more precisely those issues he represented or championed) and the condemnation of foreign intervention and occupation.”
Saddam, therefore, increasingly portrayed himself as a devout Muslim, in an effort to co-opt the conservative religious segments of society. Some elements of Sharia law were re-introduced, and the ritual phrase “Allahu Akbar” (”God is great”), in Saddam’s handwriting, was added to the national flag.”
“Saddam’s support base of Tikriti tribesmen, family members, and other supporters was divided after the war, and in the following years, contributing to the government’s increasingly repressive and arbitrary nature. Domestic repression inside Iraq grew worse, and Saddam’s sons, Uday Hussein and Qusay Hussein, became increasingly powerful and carried out a private reign of terror. They likely had a leading hand when, in August 1995, two of Saddam Hussein’s sons-in-law (Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel), who held high positions in the Iraqi military, defected to Jordan.[citation needed] Both were killed after returning to Iraq the following February.”
“U.S. officials continued to accuse Saddam of violating the terms of the Gulf War’s cease fire, by developing weapons of mass destruction and other banned weaponry, and violating the UN-imposed sanctions and “no-fly zones.” Isolated military strikes by U.S. and British forces continued on Iraq sporadically, the largest being Operation Desert Fox in 1998. Western charges of Iraqi resistance to UN access to suspected weapons were the pretext for crises between 1997 and 1998, culminating in intensive U.S. and British missile strikes on Iraq, December 16-19, 1998. After two years of intermittent activity, U.S. and British warplanes struck harder at sites near Baghdad in February, 2001.”
“During the 1990s, President Bill Clinton maintained sanctions and ordered air strikes in the “Iraqi no-fly zones” (Operation Desert Fox), in the hope that Saddam would be overthrown by political enemies inside Iraq.”
Maybe Saddam didn’t like the US? Maybe?
May 18th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
poptart, your actual commentary is frustrating enough, but do yourself a favor and do not cut and paste lengthy excerpts from wikipedia on the assumption that all of us who think that there was no point to the war in iraq never heard of how bad saddam was. grow up.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
“Let’s face it, it really was about the oil and nothing else.”
Hey, don’t forget getting re-elected and assuming permanent wartime powers….
Yeah that worked out well too. Permanent minority status? See your conspiracy theories would be more convincing if things panned out that way.
As I see it, 9-11 happened and they saw a chance to get rid of an anti-American dictator who was a menace. They totally scewed up the aftermath.
Bullsmith’s first entry in thread as total prick and no attempt at dialouge:
“Poptarts, Bush and Cheney lied and tortured people to justify a war with Iraq. These are settled facts, and nothing Saddam changes them. Turns out Saddam told the truth about WMD, Hans Blix and Mohammed El Baredi were 100% right and America was 100% wrong. Clinton got impeached for lying about an affair in a frivolous civil suit. But you think the liberals are upset about Iraq just because they don’t like Bush? Really, have you no pride in your nation? No standards you think it should hold itself to? No sense of shame?
I don’t say this often, but seriously, you’re a flaming idiot.”
You bring up Clinton. My guess is that someone older than you is a Republican, maybe a parent, and you are rebelling so everything the Republicans say is wrong. They can never be right. Everything is seen through the optic of Republican versus Democrat. Well hate to inform you but Saddam was worse than Republicans.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
poptart, your actual commentary is frustrating enough, but do yourself a favor and do not cut and paste lengthy excerpts from wikipedia on the assumption that all of us who think that there was no point to the war in iraq never heard of how bad saddam was. grow up.
No you grow up and be a little objective. Anti-war people constantly say Saddam was a “petty” dictator, etc. People patroninizingly believe if you badmouth some third world dictator you’re warmongering.
You grow up Howard, if I was talking to a soldier who fought in Iraq, I’d say honestly, it’s good he’s gone. Read Wikipedia to find out way, since you can’t call wikipedia a liar.
See during the Cold War the US via the CIA would replace democracies with dictatorships to fight communists. Actually Saddam was seen as an anti-communist bulwark, and indeed he oppressed and murdered Iraq’s communists. (This past May Day Iraq’s communsits were free to celebrate since the Cold War is over.
Since the Cold War is over, the US now replaces dictatorships with democracies as long as the world is safe for capitalism and making money.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Jesus, Poptart, you’re really one-dimensional here. Hell, CASTRO has done an awful lot of bad things over the years, why haven’t we invaded them?
I think that the Bush people literally never conceptualized that the Iraqi people, while grateful that we got rid of Saddam, would never accept a semi-permanent US occupation and would eventually fight back.
The Abu Ghirab fiasco effectively ended the Iraq War right then and there, and five years after the fact we’re still deluding ourselves into thinking that we’ve courageously created an American Style democracy in Iraq that will gleefully let us use their country as a launching pad for a neo-con desired invasion of Iran.
(off topic, but I had yet to meet my future wife when Abu Ghirab surfaced. Next week, we’ll be together five years. Just putting some of this in chronological perspective)
I think that the Bush people never simply planted WMD’s because they thought that after the 2004 election that they would never be held accountable for their actions ever again. They reacted to the “no-WMD” Achilles’ Heel by trying relentlessly to change the subject, hoping that Americans would remain terrified for a decade.
I agree completely that the unexpected blowback from the bizarre GOP self-congratulation about making torture official policy is that people who clearly saw that torture was used primarily to gin up false smoking guns for Iraq have begun to pipe up and provide documentation. When this is all said and done, what we did in Gitmo with 183 buckets of water in the months leading up to Iraq will make the Gulf of Tonkin look like a misunderstanding in a softball game.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Poppy and Poptarts, what makes you think anyone outside his twisted family has any sort of soft spot for Saddam?
Saddam was a tyrant and a mass murderer. The rest of us can hold more than that sentence in our heads at the same times.
Are you guys really this pathetic? Surely this is parody. Pair of poops.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
One more thing, why exactly do our friends on the right find it so acceptable to overthrow the government of any country we want? Dare I say it, but was the whole puppet government, prison camps with no due process, spying on citizens phone calls, torture as official policy sort of a specialty of the Soviet Union?
May 18th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
poptarts, as i say, grow up.
May 18th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Pete @ 77. But it’s different when we do it. We are the good guys, ipso facto, whatever we do is good… because the good guys do it. Duuh!
It’s like asking why plants crave Brawndo.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
It’s o.k. for the U.S. to kill a million Iraqis and destroy their infrastructure because Saddam Hussein was a bad guy? I can’t believe what I’m hearing, sometimes.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:10 am
“Peacenik”? LOL. What is it, 1952.
I’m really impressed by simpering weasels like Poppy and Poptart, likely the same person, who walk in throwing pejoratives around, and then get all wounded when people tell them to get bent.
I’m a peacenik? Why? Because I didn’t sign onto a psychotic war of choice? I didn’t buy a lot of fabricated evidence of wmds? I don’t buy a lot of post facto right wing spin that Saddam was actually pretending to have wmd by claiming he didn’t have any? Because I had real questions and concerns about the potential aftermath of such a war? Because all of my concerns came true in spades? Because the end result of the Iraq war is a million dead Iraqi’s, four million refugees, a wrecked country that we’ve handed over to Iran, trillions of dollars down the toilet, a region more unstable than ever, and 5000 dead americans?
I’m a peacenik because I was right? And right every step down the line? And you and your gut instinct morons and psychopathic trailer trash inbred dittohead no account self pitying posse of losers were wrong every step of the way?
And you sit there, simpering with infantile resentment that things didn’t turn out the way you imagined while masturbating, and so you whine and whine and make up half baked bullshit to justify your absolute impotent failure?
And guys like me laugh at you, and punch holes in your bullshit excuses.
Grow up. This crap wasn’t working when you were twelve years old, its not working now.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:25 am
DTM, et al. You might find Michael Paulsen’s article at the Weekly Standard about the Office of Professional Responsibility to be interesting. He doesn’t find them to be very responsible.
Folks, Saddam lied about his possession of WMD in order to keep the Persians at bay. He fooled everybody, including Joe Wilson, who wrote a 2/6/03 op-ed in the LATimes saying we shouldn’t invade Iraq for fear that Saddam would use his chemical and biological WMD on our troops. Yeah, that Joe Wilson, husband of Valerie Plame. And Duelfer and Rossett make it clear that Saddam had the will and the means to WMD. All your harrumphing now will not change these historical facts.
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May 19th, 2009 at 10:53 am
kim, i’m happy to know that you are as stupid as i thought. congratulations!
meanwhile, not that it will matter, since your sense of “historical facts” is rather incomplete, but anyone who reads the duelfer report as retrospectively vindicating the invasion of iraq because someday saddam hoped to restart his WMD programs shouldn’t be trusted near a typewriter.
and the possibility that saddam had and would use chemical and/or biological weapons was very real in 2002; what wasn’t real was that saddam had a nuclear weapons program. that was the right-wing lie. this, too, is an historical fact.
and the idea that an article in the weekly standard would have an interesting content is somewhere along the lines of the idea that you will produce a line of interesting text: monkeys and shakespeare….
May 19th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Ah, DTM, I see that Pincus’s leakers in the CIA have some more inconvenient things to say about the efficacy of ‘enhanced interrogation’. See the WaPo.
howard, 83. You miss my point; Duelfer and Rossett together make the argument that Saddam had the will and the means to WMD. And I suppose you are reassured by the belief that Saddam only had chemical and biological WMD, not nuclear.
You know, if the Dems keep pushing the meme about being lied into war Pincus’s leakers may decide to set the record a little straighter. Joe Wilson didn’t exactly characterize correctly the message he brought back from Niger when he decided to do a political hit on Bush. I don’t think the professionals in the CIA are very proud of what he and Valerie Plame did. What’s that about something best being served cold? Just as in this interrogation matter, the CIA may be a little tired of being called completely incompetent about Iraq.
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May 19th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Howard, 83. So? Refute Michael Paulsen of the Weekly Standard. Your pitiful technique is shabby and unpersuasive rhetoric. It’s an ad journalem. Heh.
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