Politics Thread

XU 87 · 04-06-2017, 02:48 PM

Originally Posted by ChicagoX

1) The war never would have happened had the Bush administration not led the charge and cherry-picked the evidence that supported their narrative that Iraq had WMDs that they didn't actually have. The day after 9/11, the Bush administration was looking for a reason to invade Iraq. The fact that some Democrats made the poor decision to vote for the war doesn't change the fact that invading Iraq was, is, and always will be Bush's and the Republican's baby. Had Gore won in 2000, I can guarantee you that he wouldn't have invaded Iraq. The war hawks in the GOP made this happen from the get-go.

2) Only a permanent occupation of Iraq would have prevented the rise of ISIS, which isn't a viable strategy. I'm glad we got out when we did, because this was going to happen no matter what as soon as we left. The cost both monetarily and the loss of American lives wasn't worth it.

More democratic revisionist history. Yea, the majority of senate democrats all voted to go to war because George Bush lied to them. Like I said, when the war became unpopular those same democrats ran for the hills and blamed George Bush and everyone else for their vote.

**boozehound** · 04-06-2017, 03:01 PM

Originally Posted by Caf

This is a confounding post. It was bad that democratic Senators voted to go to Iraq and it was also bad that President Obama wanted to leave Iraq? How do you reconcile these views? Withdrawal from Iraq is what people wanted. Obama campaigned very hard on that. Now, equipped with hindsight, people wanted the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq at the right time, in the right way. Withdrawal from the Middle East is never ever going to happen as planned. A western power is never going to be able to build a stable state in the Middle East. You can't have your influence in the Middle East and leave it too.

My guess is that it was bad because it was Democrats. Welcome to partisan America.

Originally Posted by XU 87

1) I mention the fact that so many democrats voted to go to war to simply the hypocrisy and disingenuous of the democratic party, who after the war became unpopular ran for the hills and blamed it all on Bush.

2) I don't care if Obama campaigned on leaving Iraq. It was a stupid move and he was told that when he did it. You don't make strategic military decisions based on "what the people want" at that given time. If you do, you are then turning a military decision into a political decision, which is what Obama did.

If my memory serves me the fact that we had incontrovertible evidence that Saddam Hussein had WMDs was a cornerstone of the selling story to get congress (Democrats and Republicans) to approve the war in Iraq. We never really found any though. The Democrats (and some Republicans) used this as a rallying cry to switch their stance on the Iraq war after it became unpopular. I don't think they are entirely wrong, but it also doesn't really matter at that point.

As previously stated: I'm not sure the extent to which Bush 'lied' vs. the extent to which he was operating on incorrect intelligence. The outcome is essentially the same, but the motivations do matter (IMHO) when evaluating the individual. I don't think Bush lied about WMDs to get into a War that he 'wanted' to get into for some reason.

Democrats can be right sometimes. So can Republicans. In fact, I would argue that if you agree with 90% or more of either side's 'party line', you probably aren't doing enough critical thinking.

Caf · 04-06-2017, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by XU 87

More democratic revisionist history. Yea, the majority of senate democrats all voted to go to war because George Bush lied to them. Like I said, when the war became unpopular those same democrats ran for the hills and blamed George Bush and everyone else for their vote.

And so did everybody else! Who the hell cares? Show me one person, Republican or Democrat who is still proud of their support for the Iraq War.

XU 87 · 04-06-2017, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by Caf

And so did everybody else! Who the hell cares? Show me one person, Republican or Democrat who is still proud of their support for the Iraq War.

Boy are you missing my point.

ChicagoX · 04-06-2017, 03:21 PM

Originally Posted by XU 87

More democratic revisionist history. Yea, the majority of senate democrats all voted to go to war because George Bush lied to them. Like I said, when the war became unpopular those same democrats ran for the hills and blamed George Bush and everyone else for their vote.

Where did I say Bush lied? I said that evidence was cherry-picked, which it clearly was since the administration obviously wanted regime change in Iraq. The buck stops at the top, which is why Bush is the one receiving most of the blame for going into Iraq. As I said before, if it would have been Gore elected, there is no way in hell he would have gone into Iraq. That war was, is, and always will be Bush's baby. No amount of deflection of Democrats voting for it will change who the country's leader was at that time and where the idea originally came from to invade Iraq.