USAir757 said:
You're probably right, the Clinton administration would have probably done a much better job with this war. Unfortunately for all of us, he was too busy running around the oval office with his pants around his ankles to even notice there was a problem.
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It's interesting to me that whenever anyone attempts to hold the Bush administration to account for their actions, the Neo-Con supporters first response is to bring up someone who hasn't been in office for half a decade. If the Democrats had done the same thing during the Clinton administration we would have spent the 1990s talking about Nixon and Watergate and nobody whould have had time to talk about Monica.
That sanctions had rendered Saddam impotent has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, verified by the DOD and the CIA. That we are going to be unable to make peace between the three major factions in Iraq, factions that have been fighting the same fight with each other for over a thousand years, has also become apparent, even among many who initially supported the war. Regardless of how long we stay, the Iraq we leave will be unstable and ripe for another such as Saddam to take it over.
As no credible evidence has been brought forward to prove that Saddam's Iraq gave anything other than moral support to Al Qaeda, we have lost over 1600 of our finest chasing a fantasy, rather than the real enemies of our nation.
You make some good points there. Though I'm pretty sure you're not about to defend how Hussein's regime was handling weapons inspections over the decade before the war in Iraq began. Just because it didn't bother President Clinton doesn't mean that it wasn't worthy of UN sanctions, and ultimately a military response.
Managing to bring Clinton back into the debate and imply that if you don't agree with Bush you might agree with Saddam! Double score!
Of course that presupposes that those are the only two positions available, a supposition that goes a long way to show why, as you yourself have lamented, the nation is divided.
Also, I'd really like to hear your explanation of the difference between "voting for war" and "giving authorization to go to war."
Since Congress is the only entity with the constitutional ability to declare war, in which both houses of the legislative branch direct the executive branch to take military action, "voting for war" would be a joint resolution of both houses to go to war, while "giving authorization to go to war" is a joint resolution of both houses giving the president the authority to decide on his own whether to make war. An abrogation of Constitutional authority identical to that which led us into Vietnam, incidentally, and kind of a moot point because the US never actually declared war on Iraq, either.
How did it work? Even up to the last months of his power, he was still mocking the U.S. and the UN, making a total game of the weapons inspections and clowning around about how his army would "topple the U.S." in the event of an invasion. The sanctions did not work.
Actually, according to the findings of both the DOD and CIA inspection teams, as well as the UN weapons inspectors, sanctions HAD worked. The fact that the WMDs which we were told were the reason we needed to invade Iraq did not even exist has been proven. If making bellicose statements and making a "total game of the weapons inspections" is justification for invasion, why are we not invading Pakistan and North Korea? If "mocking the U.S." is such a crime, why have we not invaded Cuba and China?
The fact is that expecting the rest of the world to agree with every action we take is not rational, but neither is the expectation that this means we can do whatever we want. Castigating the French, and others, for not supporting our decision to invade Iraq and calling it a mistake, even as more and more Americans come to that same realization, and implying that by not supporting us they supported him, does absolutely nothing to further our cause and actually serves to alienate potential allies in our REAL war against Al Qaeda.
Meanwhile, those nations that we DO consider our allies, such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan, continue to provide indirect support to AL Qaeda. Pakistani and Uzbekistani nationals make up a good portion of the Al Qaeda forces currently operating in Afghanistan and pass freely back and forth across their respective borders.
Before lamenting about how divided the nation is, look to the Bush administration and the Congressional majority, both of whose definitions for the word "compromise" appear to be "when both parties agree to do things OUR way", and look at the "you're either for us or against us" mentality that this engenders, both domestically and internationally. It is quite apparent the division is intentional.
