“if we break it, we own it.”

[LilOlLady]

“IF WE BREAK IT, WE OWN IT.”

That was the warning Colin Powell gave George Bush that he ignored before he invaded Iraq but it apply to Afghanistan also. He invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and ousted Saddam who keep the area stable and both are broken now. As Afghanistan tribal leader say they are afraid that when U.S. withdraws in 2014 the Taliban will return and wreck havoc on the Afghanistan people once again like the Soviet’s did after 10 years. Neither countries will be able be able to defend their country without our financial aid and military presence, putting our troops in indefinitely danger.
We broke Afghanistan and Iraq and they broke us. They are our babies now and we are there for the long haul. We need the think twice before invading another country. We already got our feet in deep in Pakistan and cannot stop aid even if we wanted to. We are in a deep shit hole and cannot climb out.
The Afghanistan and Iraq people to do not have the resolve to fight for their country. If they are not ready after 10 years, they never will be ready. Much like the resolve of the Mexican people who tuck tail and run away when their country in in trouble. We have young Mexican men running across the border and saying the hell with their country.
Bush left Obama with a lot of broken things. What it took Bush 8 years to break is going to take Obama more then 4 years to fix and most of his spending is on trying to fix the things Bush broke.

U.S. pullout date concerns Afghans.
U.S. Pullout Concerns Afghans | FrumForum

 

[OldUSAFSniper]

Saddam Hussein kept the area stable?? Well, I guess Adolf was good because he made the trains run on time, crime was way down, and inflation of the German Mark, which was over 1,000% before he came to power, was also down to single digits. Course, I doubt very seriously if you could make the same arguement to the Kurds who Saddam used Mustard gas on. And then there's that little foray into Kuwait where he murdered thousands of their citizens.

See there, I guess you can find a silver lining in any cloud. You just have to have a warped sense of "what's good" and be nothing more than a Democratic political hack to do it...

 

[konradv]

“IF WE BREAK IT, WE OWN IT.”

That was the warning Colin Powell gave George Bush that he ignored before he invaded Iraq but it apply to Afghanistan also. He invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and ousted Saddam who keep the area stable and both are broken now. As Afghanistan tribal leader say they are afraid that when U.S. withdraws in 2014 the Taliban will return and wreck havoc on the Afghanistan people once again like the Soviet’s did after 10 years. Neither countries will be able be able to defend their country without our financial aid and military presence, putting our troops in indefinitely danger.
We broke Afghanistan and Iraq and they broke us. They are our babies now and we are there for the long haul. We need the think twice before invading another country. We already got our feet in deep in Pakistan and cannot stop aid even if we wanted to. We are in a deep shit hole and cannot climb out.
The Afghanistan and Iraq people to do not have the resolve to fight for their country. If they are not ready after 10 years, they never will be ready. Much like the resolve of the Mexican people who tuck tail and run away when their country in in trouble. We have young Mexican men running across the border and saying the hell with their country.
Bush left Obama with a lot of broken things. What it took Bush 8 years to break is going to take Obama more then 4 years to fix and most of his spending is on trying to fix the things Bush broke.

U.S. pullout date concerns Afghans.
U.S. Pullout Concerns Afghans | FrumForum

Good reason to discount the Reps this cycle. Leave it to them and we'd have a broken Iran on our hands.

 

[007]

Saddam Hussein kept the area stable?? Well, I guess Adolf was good because he made the trains run on time, crime was way down, and inflation of the German Mark, which was over 1,000% before he came to power, was also down to single digits. Course, I doubt very seriously if you could make the same arguement to the Kurds who Saddam used Mustard gas on. And then there's that little foray into Kuwait where he murdered thousands of their citizens.

See there, I guess you can find a silver lining in any cloud. You just have to have a warped sense of "what's good" and be nothing more than a Democratic political hack to do it...

I'm an 8 year veteran of the USAF myself OldUSAFSniper, but I don't believe we should have invaded Iraq. I don't think Bush should have had the power to start that war against a sovereign nation that hadn't attacked us, and it was unconstitutional. I don't think it's done us one darn bit of good either. It's cost us trillions of dollars, and for what? Are we really better off? We should not be occupiers or nation builders.

 

[konradv]

Saddam Hussein kept the area stable?? Well, I guess Adolf was good because he made the trains run on time, crime was way down, and inflation of the German Mark, which was over 1,000% before he came to power, was also down to single digits. Course, I doubt very seriously if you could make the same arguement to the Kurds who Saddam used Mustard gas on. And then there's that little foray into Kuwait where he murdered thousands of their citizens.

See there, I guess you can find a silver lining in any cloud. You just have to have a warped sense of "what's good" and be nothing more than a Democratic political hack to do it...

Saddam was bottled up in his own country with little, if any, danger to us. It didn't make sense to take him out, while we were still dealing with Afghanistan. It was all based on a phony sense of urgency. Now we're surprised the Taliban is still a problem in Afghanistan!!! Sure the plight of the Kurds and Kuwaitis deserved our attention, but we have a responsibiity to the U.S. first.

 

[OldUSAFSniper]

No where in my post did it defend GWB's timing for the invasion of Iraq. Was Saddam bad? Oh yeah, really bad. The man was a ticking time bomb. Should we have invaded? At the time I was for it. I believed the National Intelligence Estimate. Hell, the British, the French, the Israeli's and everyone else believed he was sitting on WMD's. Clinton passed a resolution calling for "regime change" even if it happened violently. Everyone thought he had them. Did I believe he was involved in 9/11? No, I was pretty much pinning that on OBL.

The problem with Iraq wasn't that we invaded. The problem is that we somehow believe that we are responsible for rebuilding these two-bit shitholes. When you go in and take out a countries leadership, their is a vacuum in power. Someone, good or bad is going to fill that vacuum. If you stay for 10 years, all you do is post pone that vacuum. When we leave next year, then whoever will fill that vacuum then. A trillion dollars and four thousand lives latter, and the laws of physics will still apply. That vacuum will be filled by whoever. They may be friends with us, then again, they may not be.

All I'm saying is that at the time, he looked like a major threat. We took him out, then we should have installed a provisional government and came home. These people have been killing each other for three thousand years. We're goiing to stop this because we say so? I got no problem with these idiots blowing the hell out of each other. I got a problem when it looks like they are targeting America and its interests. But I got no stomach for rebuilding these shitholes.

 

[kaz]

That was the warning Colin Powell gave George Bush that he ignored before he invaded Iraq but it apply to Afghanistan also...

Both parties are completely duplicitous in getting us into that whole shit hole that is our presence in the middle east. I only saw you mention Republicans. Was that an oversight? If it was and you blame BOTH criminal parties for getting us into illegal wars and our arrogant and pointless presence in the middle east then bully for you, you are part of the solution. But if you ignore the crimes of the democrats and rewrite history that it was just George Bush and the Republicans who did this, then you are truly worse then George Bush because all the blood of our soldiers is to you is a chance to score cheap political points. So which is it?

 

[Jarhead]

Saddam Hussein kept the area stable?? Well, I guess Adolf was good because he made the trains run on time, crime was way down, and inflation of the German Mark, which was over 1,000% before he came to power, was also down to single digits. Course, I doubt very seriously if you could make the same arguement to the Kurds who Saddam used Mustard gas on. And then there's that little foray into Kuwait where he murdered thousands of their citizens.

See there, I guess you can find a silver lining in any cloud. You just have to have a warped sense of "what's good" and be nothing more than a Democratic political hack to do it...

I'm an 8 year veteran of the USAF myself OldUSAFSniper, but I don't believe we should have invaded Iraq. I don't think Bush should have had the power to start that war against a sovereign nation that hadn't attacked us, and it was unconstitutional. I don't think it's done us one darn bit of good either. It's cost us trillions of dollars, and for what? Are we really better off? We should not be occupiers or nation builders.

Thank you for your service Pale Rider.

At the time, and for several years prior, our intel as well as the intel of many other countries implied there were WMD's. Couple that with Husseins antagonistic attitude as he made the treaty agreed upon inspections quite difficult....well...it sure seemed something was amiss. Bush did not stasrt the war. Congress did...

But that being said, it is easy to be spot on with 20-20 vision..and hindsight is 20-20. If the WMD's DID exist, then the attack as timely and necessary.

As for rebuilding....i see it more as ensuring that al-queda does not have a safe haven in Iraq...

But, alas, once we withdraw, those poor people of Iraq will be in a worse situation than they were when we first arrived.

 

[BlindBoo]

Saddam Hussein kept the area stable?? Well, I guess Adolf was good because he made the trains run on time, crime was way down, and inflation of the German Mark, which was over 1,000% before he came to power, was also down to single digits. Course, I doubt very seriously if you could make the same arguement to the Kurds who Saddam used Mustard gas on. And then there's that little foray into Kuwait where he murdered thousands of their citizens.

See there, I guess you can find a silver lining in any cloud. You just have to have a warped sense of "what's good" and be nothing more than a Democratic political hack to do it...

So was this guy a Democratic Hack too?

Excerpt from "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam" by George Bush [Sr.] and Brent Scowcroft, Time (2 March 1998): While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome

Reasons Not to Invade Iraq, By George Bush Sr.

 

[Rozman]

“IF WE BREAK IT, WE OWN IT.”

That was the warning Colin Powell gave George Bush that he ignored before he invaded Iraq but it apply to Afghanistan also. He invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and ousted Saddam who keep the area stable and both are broken now. As Afghanistan tribal leader say they are afraid that when U.S. withdraws in 2014 the Taliban will return and wreck havoc on the Afghanistan people once again like the Soviet’s did after 10 years. Neither countries will be able be able to defend their country without our financial aid and military presence, putting our troops in indefinitely danger.
We broke Afghanistan and Iraq and they broke us. They are our babies now and we are there for the long haul. We need the think twice before invading another country. We already got our feet in deep in Pakistan and cannot stop aid even if we wanted to. We are in a deep shit hole and cannot climb out.
The Afghanistan and Iraq people to do not have the resolve to fight for their country. If they are not ready after 10 years, they never will be ready. Much like the resolve of the Mexican people who tuck tail and run away when their country in in trouble. We have young Mexican men running across the border and saying the hell with their country.
Bush left Obama with a lot of broken things. What it took Bush 8 years to break is going to take Obama more then 4 years to fix and most of his spending is on trying to fix the things Bush broke.

U.S. pullout date concerns Afghans.
U.S. Pullout Concerns Afghans | FrumForum

Good reason to discount the Reps this cycle. Leave it to them and we'd have a broken Iran on our hands.

I guess you are equally as angry with the Democrats for voting for the United States to go into Afghanistan and Iraq...right ? Just a thought!

 

[BlindBoo]

No where in my post did it defend GWB's timing for the invasion of Iraq. Was Saddam bad? Oh yeah, really bad. The man was a ticking time bomb. Should we have invaded? At the time I was for it. I believed the National Intelligence Estimate. Hell, the British, the French, the Israeli's and everyone else believed he was sitting on WMD's. Clinton passed a resolution calling for "regime change" even if it happened violently. Everyone thought he had them. Did I believe he was involved in 9/11? No, I was pretty much pinning that on OBL.

The problem with Iraq wasn't that we invaded. The problem is that we somehow believe that we are responsible for rebuilding these two-bit shitholes. When you go in and take out a countries leadership, their is a vacuum in power. Someone, good or bad is going to fill that vacuum. If you stay for 10 years, all you do is post pone that vacuum. When we leave next year, then whoever will fill that vacuum then. A trillion dollars and four thousand lives latter, and the laws of physics will still apply. That vacuum will be filled by whoever. They may be friends with us, then again, they may not be.

All I'm saying is that at the time, he looked like a major threat. We took him out, then we should have installed a provisional government and came home. These people have been killing each other for three thousand years. We're goiing to stop this because we say so? I got no problem with these idiots blowing the hell out of each other. I got a problem when it looks like they are targeting America and its interests. But I got no stomach for rebuilding these shitholes.

The CIA Chief breifed President Bush in Sept 2002 with intel that Saddam had not reconstituted his WMD programs. This information was delibrately left out of the the National Intelligence Estimate of 2001. Also Both Powell and Rice had stated publicly earlier in 2001 that this was the case.

Both Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's closest adviser, made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat - to America, Europe or the Middle East.

Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction - CIA - Salon.com