[dissention]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

But, my point is that blame for pursuing all avenues to rid SH of them cannot be put solely on the Bush Administration - the UN and the Clinton and first Bush Administrations must share in that blame.

Of course all the blame falls on them. Don't try to sell me that ****. They're the ones who invaded. Clinton did not. The United Nations did not. Whether or not Clinton had all of the same intel (which he did not), he did not act on that intel by invading the country and slaying it's citizens. The Bushbots took all of the lies & bull****, packaged it up for mass consumption, and then went about trying to sell it to the world as a respectable bill of goods. The fact that they knew all of it was a bunch of lies just makes it all the more abhorrent.

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Where they differ to me is the Bush Administration used 9/11 as a springboard to invade Iraq.

And did you read the article I posted about Bush requesting a report on Saddam's supposed ties with Al Qaeda a mere two days after 9/11? The report came back and contained the exact opposite of what they started saying to rally support for the war. Saddam had no ties with Al Qaeda. Of course, Bush won't release it in any form. Wouldn't even give it to the 9/11 commission.

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I agree with the general point that after 9/11, SH was a loose cannon that had to be dealt with because, again, the world thought he had WMD and 9/11 demonstrated the terrorists were not scared to come here and use them or other methods to hurt us.

I think that's utter ****. I'm sorry, but you are not going to sell me on this "They thought there were weapons" ****. The administration knew there were none. This is ****ing Iraq, a country crippled by sanctions and without the ability to wipe their own asses without the rest of the world knowing whether they used Scotts or a generic brand.

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I would have, however, let the inspections conclude and gone from there. Of course, W could not do this because it was very apparent the inspections would turn up no WMD and the lone peg on which to hang the war hat would be removed. In other words, if W had said "Hey America, I am going to take us to a costly war to remove this really really bad guy," he would not have been able to sell that no matter how much Americans stupidly and blindly hated (and still hate) people from that part of the world.

Precisely. Why let the inspections continue? It wouldn't have yielded the results Bush wanted and if he let them continue any further, he risked losing some of the support he had to invade. That demonstrates to me that they had knowledge of there not being any weapons.

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I do not know the extent of Powell's culpability in the exxageration of the evidence or in the termination of the inspections. Personally, I think that as the Sec. of State and not the head of the CIA, etc., he is not as complicit as you do, but clearly he is on some level.

He can lick my crack. Anyone who would sell out their own integrity like that in order to bomb innocent people isn't worth my pissing on if they were on fire. He's as complicit in blowing off the arms of children as the actual bomb that was used is. It's unforgivable.