Do you think he actually gave any consideration to the Iraqi people? I mean, he didn't give them any consideration AFTER he had invaded and put Bremer in charge of everything and then turned Iraq into a petri dish for Islamic terrorism.
He didn't care about the US soldiers, he didn't care about the people who have been impacted all over the world by Islamic terrorism, and he didn't give a damn about the Iraqi people. Simple as.
I actually think he got it. He felt a sense of urgency to do something because of
1) the toll it was taking on the Iraqi people. And our sanctions should never be designed that way for so long.
2) the mess at the UN with the resignations criticizing the policy from weapons inspectors and humanitarian officials.. And the corruption.
3) the urgency to stop persecuting and killing an entire COUNTRY of Muslim Arabs in a time when he wanted to run a general "War on Terrorism". Looked bad to be bombing Iraq daily and saying we weren't at war with all of Islam..
But you're right. We arrived to NAG the Iraqi people into Democracy and running stuff our way. We became super nannies to a people who were not in the mood to be feeling the love. We ran off their military and govt and tried to make replacements in own image. THAT -- was tone deaf -- to say the least. AND -- it's Bush's fault for taking that advice. But I DON'T fault him for having the balls to do SOMETHING to end 12 VERY BAD years of former US policy. He should have figured out what it was gonna cost us in lives and money before his first term was up...
1) The sanctions were a problem, but people didn't know how to contain someone like Saddam. However did Bush care? I'd doubt it. He wanted Saddam out of the way. Why? Why not Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe? Why not the Kims in North Korea? Why not the DRC (Congo) with all their problems?
Why specifically Iraq?
2) The weapons inspections were what? Bush was told there wasn't a threat, so why did he make out there was a threat when there wasn't? We know, for a fact, that he took dodgy intelligence and added more dodgy to the already dodgy. Why? Saddam was contained at that point in time.
3) Again, the persecution wasn't an issue. People died under Saddam and they died under Bremer. There wasn't much difference there. Bush didn't put things in place to stop it going balls up. Why not?
To end bad US foreign policy, by replacing it with EVEN WORSE foreign policy. Er........
well you are right about one thing, Obama did replace bad foreign policy with EVEN WORSE foreign policy.
Can we stop with this nonsense please? Either talk about what I'm talking about or just don't bother replying.
I just put your post in proper context.
But we agree, Iraq was a stupid waste of American lives and money. What we disagree on is your erroneous claim that Bush did it all on his own, the he convinced the entire world to accept a lie, and that he was such a great communicator that he fooled all of the democrats-----------------or are you saying that Hillary and the dems were too stupid to see the truth? It has to be one or the other.
I didn't claim Bush did it all on his own. In fact I'm not sure it was Bush who was the main player at all. However he was the one in charge of the government at the time, so he takes the responsibility. We could have a long discussion on who did what, and we'd have to guess because a lot of this was never recorded, behind the scenes and no one will ever know. So, to make it more simple, we give the blame to the guy who held the responsibility.
The first thing is that Bush, or someone behind Bush, sent the CIA out to "find" information that suited their needs. The NSA didn't get told to do this, and were subsequently ignored by Bush and his team. Bush was the one who went with the intelligence to other politicians, like Clinton, and told them things.
So, Bush and his team were in the know, they knew what was the truth, and they knew what was fabricated. They then took the fabrication and fabricated it some more. This double fabrication is what was delivered to others.
Were people like Clinton too stupid to see the truth? Maybe not too stupid, but they definitely are politicians who would have also made what was in front of them fit their own agenda for the advancement of their own careers.
Around the world people were saying this was all bullshit. For Clinton, she didn't need to make it bullshit. They probably saw what the people were saying, and the people were saying what the media were saying, and the media were saying what those in charge of the media wanted them to say, and these people also control the politicians.
So Clinton didn't necessarily have the desire to make this the fight that others would have made it.
The problem here is one of a govt system with two parties doing the bidding of the main power people, whoever they are, consciously or sub-consciously.
You can criticize Clinton for being that career politician. But it doesn't really matter, they're all playing the politics game. It'd be like in China where many politicians are getting done for corruption, but they're all corrupt, just some get accused of it, and some walk about without a problem.
However Clinton didn't fabricate things, she just didn't do something. Bush did things, he invented. That's the difference.