Iraq: WSWD? What Should have George W. Done?

[seventil]

As I typed the description of the topic, I realized how crazy it sounded even saying it. To compare the decisions of Bush to Jesus is comical to most, serious to some and not a laughing matter to a few.

Over a bottle of wine (or three) recently I discussed this topic with a fellow Christian friend of mine. It was our conclusion that:

In regards to the Iraq War:

After the 9/11 attack, if George W. would have practiced real Christianity (turning the other cheek, loving your enemy as yourself) he would have made more of an impression on the world.

Think of it: a heartfelt telecast where George says: "Obama, please stop killing Americans. We're angry right now- but we're hating the sin, not you. We aren't going to try and kill you. We are praying for you, and we ask that you stop trying to terrorize us."

The response in America probably would have been terrible. He might have got shot, even. Emotion was so high in American then that people wanted VENGEANCE. (This is a flaw in our society character, but is to be expected). Yeah, people would be mad. Maybe rioting. However, 5 years in the future (like now) people would probably be much, much happier with the war and everything that's been done.

So, questions for debate:

What would have been the world or US reaction to a pacifist solution to the current Iraq War?

Could this ever happen? Would America allow a pacifist solution to a scenario like this?

Is it Biblically justified to do what we're doing in Iraq currently?

[Easyrider]

Who cares if we're not well thought of by other doormat nations who have no sense of history

If you honestly believe this, your more deluded than I thought, we live in a world economy.

And no sense of history? Quick History lesson for you, There were no WMD in Iraq.

Tsk tsk...

Saddam's WMDs are in Syria

Posted: June 29, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Michael Evans

2004 WorldNetDaily.com

There is mounting evidence that at least some of Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction are in Syria, smuggled there by the Iraqi dictator for safekeeping before the beginning of the war. Part of the stockpile the coalition forces have so far failed to find in Iraq was probably destroyed; part is likely still hidden. But a massively lethal amount of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons is stored alongside Syria's own stockpiles of WMDs.
Perhaps more worrisome, there are indications these weapons are not under the control of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Rather, in a potentially catastrophic palace intrigue, his sister, Bushra, and her husband, Gen. Assaf Shawkat, the No. 2 in Syria's military intelligence organization, the Mukhabarat, are said to have made the storage arrangements with Saddam as part of a bid for power.
On Jan. 5, 2004, Nizar Nayouf, a Syrian journalist who recently defected to France, said in a letter to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that chemical and biological weapons were smuggled from Iraq into Syria before the war began, when Saddam realized he would be attacked by the U.S. Nayouf claimed to know three sites where Iraq's WMDs are kept: in tunnels under the town of al-Baida in northern Syria, part of an underground factory built by North Korea for producing a Syrian version of the Scud missile; in the village of Tal Snan, adjacent to a Syrian Air Force base; and in Sjinsjar, on the border with Lebanon.
Speaking to the British television station ITN on Jan. 9, Nayouf quoted a Syrian military intelligence official as confirming the three sites.
Nayouf's claims had in fact been substantiated by the U.S. intelligence community two months before. In a briefing to defense reporters on Oct. 30, 2003, officials of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in Washington released an assessment that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were transferred to Syria in the weeks before the war began.
The officials said the assessment was based on satellite images of convoys of Iraqi trucks that poured into Syria in February and March 2003. According to Middle East Newsline, quoted by WorldTribune.com, most of the intelligence community concluded that at least some of Iraq's WMDs, along with Iraqi scientists and technicians, was smuggled to Syria.
NIMA chief James Clapper, a retired Air Force general and a leading member of the U.S. intelligence community, told reporters he linked the disappearance of Iraqi WMDs with the large number of Iraqi trucks that crossed into Syria before and during the U.S. invasion. The assessment was that these trucks contained missiles and WMD components banned by the United Nations Security Council.
"I think personally that the [Iraqi] senior leadership saw what was coming and I think they went to some extraordinary lengths to dispose of the evidence," Clapper said. He said he is certain that components connected to Iraq's biological, chemical, and nuclear programs were sent to Syria in the weeks prior to and during the war.
David Kay, the recently resigned head of an American WMD search team in Iraq, confirmed that part of Saddam's weapons was hidden in Syria, Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported on Jan. 25, 2004. Kay said he had uncovered conclusive evidence shortly before last year's U.S. invasion.
"We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons, but we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD program," Kay said.
Gal Luft, a former analyst for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, confirmed Iraqi WMDs are hidden in Syria, but not by the regime.


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/print ... E_ID=39182

Once again, quick history lesson for you again. Now that we have been on the ground in Iraq we do know one thing. Sanctions had broken (and had kept broken) the Iraqi ability to wage a war of aggression.

Ha. Saddam was still in power and sanctions did nothing to stop his and his son's murderous ways.

What we have are two failures at democracy sitting as shining examples of US intervention.

You boys always quit too soon. How long did it take us once the Declaration of Independence was given? 13 years until the Constitution?

CNN via Vladd44 -Before the invasion there was no Taliban or Al-Quaeda in Iraq.

Another laugher.

Actually, there were many connections, as Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn, writing in the current issue of the Weekly Standard, spell out under the headline "The Mother of All Connections." Since the fall of Saddam, the U.S. has had extraordinary access to documents of the former Baathist regime, and is still sifting through millions of them. Messrs. Hayes and Joscelyn take some of what is already available, combined with other reports, documentation and details, some from before the overthrow of Saddam, some after. For page after page, they list connections--with names, dates and details such as the longstanding relationship between Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Saddam's regime.

Messrs. Hayes and Joscelyn raise, with good reason, the question of why Saddam gave haven to Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the men who in 1993 helped make the bomb that ripped through the parking garage of the World Trade Center. They detail a contact between Iraqi intelligence and several of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Malaysia, the year before al Qaeda destroyed the twin towers. They recount the intersection of Iraqi and al Qaeda business interests in Sudan, via, among other things, an Oil for Food contract negotiated by Saddam's regime with the al-Shifa facility that President Clinton targeted for a missile attack following the African embassy bombings because of its apparent connection to al Qaeda. And there is plenty more.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnist ... =110006953

Even Hillary Clinton acknowledged the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection in her speech announcing support for the authorization of the use of force against Iraq in 2002. She said, "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capabilities, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members." (emphasis added).

Of course then you have the Answar Al-Islam Al Queda terrorist camp on Iraq soil that Saddam turned a blind eye towards.

Our troops are a lightening rod, there is no doubt we are the primary unit maintaining order in the country, but our being there is part of the dividing line.

Viva the dividing line! Good men are always a lightning rod to evil individuals.

Nor would the Kurds escape. Their way of life is over too. Once that holocaust ends, and it will go on for quite some time, then you are left with pro-terrorist nations Iran, Iraq, and Syria dominating the Middle East, and very likely the Persian Gulf. Who then will be next? And there will be a "next." Very likely, Saudi Arabia and, most certainly, Israel.

Keep preaching man. Your only showing what a piss poor position the pathetic execution of this war has put us in. You Keep ignoring the fact that Saddam was hated by Syria and Iran. That he was a stumbling block in their way.

You know, sometimes just bloodying the nasty tyrrant's noses real good for a few years is enough for me. That will arguably make them think twice before invading other countries again.

Our invasion has been the key for the rise in terrorism in Iraq as well as the rise of the shia in Iraq and their ties with Iran.

I think it's a real fine idea more of those terrorist idiots are coming out of the closet over there. Now we know where they are. It's a mighty fine place to kill them and send them to hell.

We have also weakened the position of our "friends" in the region. It does not suit US interests to have put the Saudi Govt in such a weak position as we have through undermining the entire region. If it goes we could be looking at an extreme increase in petroleum prices in very rapid order.

Gotta do what's right and find out who your real friends are. The alternative of letting Saddam run amok to raise more cain another day and further destabilize the middle east wasn't a good plan.

The Bush mentality has played perfectly into the hands of our enemies. We have shown ourselves to be fearful children who spend our time reacting to every event with fear and awe.

You must be watching another war. We're kicking butt and taking names. It's the terrorists who are hiding in their caves and rat-hole slums.

Instead reaching out to people and building consensus with more moderate influences, we have only made their job more difficult and swayed Islamic opinion further against us.

By then Rome has already burned down.

[Goat]

Who cares if we're not well thought of by other doormat nations who have no sense of history

If you honestly believe this, your more deluded than I thought, we live in a world economy.

And no sense of history? Quick History lesson for you, There were no WMD in Iraq.

Tsk tsk...

Saddam's WMDs are in Syria

Posted: June 29, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Michael Evans

2004 WorldNetDaily.com

There is mounting evidence that at least some of Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction are in Syria, smuggled there by the Iraqi dictator for safekeeping before the beginning of the war. Part of the stockpile the coalition forces have so far failed to find in Iraq was probably destroyed; part is likely still hidden. But a massively lethal amount of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons is stored alongside Syria's own stockpiles of WMDs.
Perhaps more worrisome, there are indications these weapons are not under the control of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Rather, in a potentially catastrophic palace intrigue, his sister, Bushra, and her husband, Gen. Assaf Shawkat, the No. 2 in Syria's military intelligence organization, the Mukhabarat, are said to have made the storage arrangements with Saddam as part of a bid for power.
On Jan. 5, 2004, Nizar Nayouf, a Syrian journalist who recently defected to France, said in a letter to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that chemical and biological weapons were smuggled from Iraq into Syria before the war began, when Saddam realized he would be attacked by the U.S. Nayouf claimed to know three sites where Iraq's WMDs are kept: in tunnels under the town of al-Baida in northern Syria, part of an underground factory built by North Korea for producing a Syrian version of the Scud missile; in the village of Tal Snan, adjacent to a Syrian Air Force base; and in Sjinsjar, on the border with Lebanon.
Speaking to the British television station ITN on Jan. 9, Nayouf quoted a Syrian military intelligence official as confirming the three sites.
Nayouf's claims had in fact been substantiated by the U.S. intelligence community two months before. In a briefing to defense reporters on Oct. 30, 2003, officials of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in Washington released an assessment that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were transferred to Syria in the weeks before the war began.
The officials said the assessment was based on satellite images of convoys of Iraqi trucks that poured into Syria in February and March 2003. According to Middle East Newsline, quoted by WorldTribune.com, most of the intelligence community concluded that at least some of Iraq's WMDs, along with Iraqi scientists and technicians, was smuggled to Syria.
NIMA chief James Clapper, a retired Air Force general and a leading member of the U.S. intelligence community, told reporters he linked the disappearance of Iraqi WMDs with the large number of Iraqi trucks that crossed into Syria before and during the U.S. invasion. The assessment was that these trucks contained missiles and WMD components banned by the United Nations Security Council.
"I think personally that the [Iraqi] senior leadership saw what was coming and I think they went to some extraordinary lengths to dispose of the evidence," Clapper said. He said he is certain that components connected to Iraq's biological, chemical, and nuclear programs were sent to Syria in the weeks prior to and during the war.
David Kay, the recently resigned head of an American WMD search team in Iraq, confirmed that part of Saddam's weapons was hidden in Syria, Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported on Jan. 25, 2004. Kay said he had uncovered conclusive evidence shortly before last year's U.S. invasion.
"We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons, but we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD program," Kay said.
Gal Luft, a former analyst for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, confirmed Iraqi WMDs are hidden in Syria, but not by the regime.


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/print ... E_ID=39182

Once again, quick history lesson for you again. Now that we have been on the ground in Iraq we do know one thing. Sanctions had broken (and had kept broken) the Iraqi ability to wage a war of aggression.

Ha. Saddam was still in power and sanctions did nothing to stop his and his son's murderous ways.

What we have are two failures at democracy sitting as shining examples of US intervention.

You boys always quit too soon. How long did it take us once the Declaration of Independence was given? 13 years until the Constitution?

CNN via Vladd44 -Before the invasion there was no Taliban or Al-Quaeda in Iraq.

Another laugher.

Actually, there were many connections, as Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn, writing in the current issue of the Weekly Standard, spell out under the headline "The Mother of All Connections." Since the fall of Saddam, the U.S. has had extraordinary access to documents of the former Baathist regime, and is still sifting through millions of them. Messrs. Hayes and Joscelyn take some of what is already available, combined with other reports, documentation and details, some from before the overthrow of Saddam, some after. For page after page, they list connections--with names, dates and details such as the longstanding relationship between Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Saddam's regime.

Messrs. Hayes and Joscelyn raise, with good reason, the question of why Saddam gave haven to Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the men who in 1993 helped make the bomb that ripped through the parking garage of the World Trade Center. They detail a contact between Iraqi intelligence and several of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Malaysia, the year before al Qaeda destroyed the twin towers. They recount the intersection of Iraqi and al Qaeda business interests in Sudan, via, among other things, an Oil for Food contract negotiated by Saddam's regime with the al-Shifa facility that President Clinton targeted for a missile attack following the African embassy bombings because of its apparent connection to al Qaeda. And there is plenty more.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnist ... =110006953

Even Hillary Clinton acknowledged the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection in her speech announcing support for the authorization of the use of force against Iraq in 2002. She said, "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capabilities, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members." (emphasis added).

Of course then you have the Answar Al-Islam Al Queda terrorist camp on Iraq soil that Saddam turned a blind eye towards.

Our troops are a lightening rod, there is no doubt we are the primary unit maintaining order in the country, but our being there is part of the dividing line.

Viva the dividing line! Good men are always a lightning rod to evil individuals.

Nor would the Kurds escape. Their way of life is over too. Once that holocaust ends, and it will go on for quite some time, then you are left with pro-terrorist nations Iran, Iraq, and Syria dominating the Middle East, and very likely the Persian Gulf. Who then will be next? And there will be a "next." Very likely, Saudi Arabia and, most certainly, Israel.

Keep preaching man. Your only showing what a piss poor position the pathetic execution of this war has put us in. You Keep ignoring the fact that Saddam was hated by Syria and Iran. That he was a stumbling block in their way.

You know, sometimes just bloodying the nasty tyrrant's noses real good for a few years is enough for me. That will arguably make them think twice before invading other countries again.

Our invasion has been the key for the rise in terrorism in Iraq as well as the rise of the shia in Iraq and their ties with Iran.

I think it's a real fine idea more of those terrorist idiots are coming out of the closet over there. Now we know where they are. It's a mighty fine place to kill them and send them to hell.

We have also weakened the position of our "friends" in the region. It does not suit US interests to have put the Saudi Govt in such a weak position as we have through undermining the entire region. If it goes we could be looking at an extreme increase in petroleum prices in very rapid order.

Gotta do what's right and find out who your real friends are. The alternative of letting Saddam run amok to raise more cain another day and further destabilize the middle east wasn't a good plan.

The Bush mentality has played perfectly into the hands of our enemies. We have shown ourselves to be fearful children who spend our time reacting to every event with fear and awe.

You must be watching another war. We're kicking butt and taking names. It's the terrorists who are hiding in their caves and rat-hole slums.

Instead reaching out to people and building consensus with more moderate influences, we have only made their job more difficult and swayed Islamic opinion further against us.

By then Rome has already burned down.

Yes, you can find red necked sources on the net that distort the facts. I don't find your sources very credible. They actually lie quite a bit.

[Easyrider]

Yes, you can find red necked sources on the net that distort the facts. I don't find your sources very credible. They actually lie quite a bit.

"Red necked sources"? LOL. Is that the best you can come up with, Goat? What a howler!!!

Here's another flash for you: Hillary (Mama and Obama) will not win the White House in 2008. America has wised up to the radical left's nonsense.

[McCulloch]

Here's another flash for you: Hillary (Mama and Obama) will not win the White House in 2008. America has wised up to the radical left's nonsense.

Is that a prophetic utterance or is that just your opinion? After putting W in the White house 1 times, I seriously doubt the collective wisdom of the American electorate.

[opus49]

Here's another flash for you: Hillary (Mama and Obama) will not win the White House in 2008. America has wised up to the radical left's nonsense.

Is that a prophetic utterance or is that just your opinion? After putting W in the White house 1 times, I seriously doubt the collective wisdom of the American electorate.

Whoa hey whoa there... no need to bash the American electorate!

[Vladd44]

By then Rome has already burned down.

Today I saw two goats and a dog building a fence.

[Easyrider]

Here's another flash for you: Hillary (Mama and Obama) will not win the White House in 2008. America has wised up to the radical left's nonsense.

Is that a prophetic utterance or is that just your opinion? After putting W in the White house 1 times, I seriously doubt the collective wisdom of the American electorate.

1 1/2 times? Was there ever a recount in Florida you people won?

As for the collective wisdom of the American Electorate, I've said three times running now: If the Democrats keep putting far left candidates on their final ticket, they're going to keep losing. Gore, Kerry, and Hillary are about as far left on their voting records, etc., as anyone around. Yeah, Hillary may be trying to gravitate to present herself as a moderate, but we know she's into left wing socialism - with her massive government-run health care, redistribution of wealth scheme (a scheme centered in greed for other people's money, rather than relying on one's own personal work effort); and we know the kind of looney-tune Supreme Court justices she would nominate.

If you want to win an election, get a true moderate.

[opus49]

If you want to win an election, get a true moderate.

Like President Bush.

[Easyrider]

If you want to win an election, get a true moderate.

Like President Bush.

Considering JFK during the Cuban Missile crisis, that ain't bad. JFK wouldn't be able the win the Democratic nomination today because he'd be considered too conservative (tax cuts, pumping up the Special Forces, staring down the Soviet Union, etc.).

[opus49]

...staring down the Soviet Union, etc.

Eh... come now. You know, it's funny... I actually agreed with your earlier post concerning the Dems (I voted for Bush twice). But I poked fun at the moderate comment because Bush has grown far more divisive than any of the mainstream Dem candidates for '08 (except maybe Hil).

But I've got to quibble about this last part here. JFK didn't "stare down" the Soviet Union. The Cuban Missile Crisis was an absolute failure on JFK's part. We put missiles in Turkey and the USSR didn't want them there. So they put missiles in Cuba. The only reason those missiles left Cuba is because we agreed to move our missiles out of Turkey.

Khrushchev got exactly what he wanted.

The only "win" that JFK could claim was that he didn't start WWIII. Bravo.