BaronVonBigmeat
Senior Member
- Sep 20, 2005
- 1,185
- 163
- 48
Being in a Nation at the invitation of the government is normally how that works. Which nation is it where the people are polled to see if they want us?
Yes, I understand that. It was all perfectly legal and proper, it just wasn't a very wise thing to do if you're looking to win goodwill amongst the average man on the street.
You opinion that the sanctions were a bad idea is just THAT ... your opinion. Do they just not teach the actual, fact-based chain of events that led the First Gulf War, or what?
It's an opinion that's based on reason. Iraq was never a threat to the US, sanctions never cause a people to rise up against their dictator, and they punish ordinary citizens, a good number of whom detested Saddam. Our ambassador also informed Saddam that any quarrel amongst two Arab nations about a border dispute would not be any concern to the US government.
Critics of the sanctions say that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, disproportionately children, died as a result of them, [2] although certain skeptics claim the numbers to be less. [3] [4][5] UNICEF has put the number of child deaths to 500,000.[6] The reasons include lack of medical supplies, malnutrition, and especially disease owing to lack of clean water. Among other things, chlorine, needed for disinfecting water supplies, was banned as having a "dual use" in potential weapons manufacture. On May 10, 1996, appearing on 60 Minutes, Madeleine Albright (then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations) was presented with a figure of half a million children under five having died from the sanctions. Not challenging this figure, she infamously replied "we think the price is worth it," though she later rued the comment as "stupid."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_sanctions
There was never any plan at that time to remove Saddam from power.
Yes, which proves my point that he was not a genuine threat to the US. If he was, he would have been history in the first war.
That "Bush didn't finish the job" crap stinks from 1991 to here. The left has ignored the facts in favor of partisan hackery.
I am not arguing a "Bush Sr. didn't finish the job". I am arguing that it was a job that the US should not have undertaken in the first place. I do agree though, that "Bush didn't finish the job" is partisan baloney, since the same people would have criticized any invasion that followed.