Obama DOJ Asks Court to Grant Immunity to George W. Bush For Iraq War

Discussion in 'Blazers OT Forum' started by bluefrog, Aug 22, 2013.

  1. TradeNurkicNow

    TradeNurkicNow piss

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    I see no conspiracy, I see how politics works. These kinds of wars take time and effort and massive amounts of lies to calm the public. Iran just wasn't in the cards. And Iraq was clearly the focus. Just look at their website.

    Hmm. I'm kind of surprised you bought all of that.

    PNAC was founded in 1997, with many signatures in the future Bush administration: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Bolton, Armitage, Scooter Libby, Perle, etc. The list seriously goes on.

    I'm not diving into the conspiracy. But to look at this organization that pushed so hard for Iraq regime change from 1997 until 2003, and see all the ties to the Bush administration, and not think something might be up is ludicrous. I bet you think nothing of the connection between Cheney and the no-bid contract given to Halliburton either.
     
  2. BLAZER PROPHET

    BLAZER PROPHET Well-Known Member

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    I don't necessarily disagree, I'm just making a point about political strategy. The dems get it. The GOP doesn't.
     
  3. Nikolokolus

    Nikolokolus There's always next year

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    But that's all we focus on now; strategy and tactics and rooting for our "tribe" and it's killing real debate and real discussion.
     
  4. BLAZER PROPHET

    BLAZER PROPHET Well-Known Member

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    True
     
  5. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Agreed. It was 1997.

    You and I seem to think alike on numerous issues. I don't think this is one.

    W could have ordered the bombing of Iran, Iraq, or any other nation of his choosing the day he took office. If he was the liar people claim, he could have made up any old reason that was imminent doom and reason to act with all due haste.

    I do not see how Iraq was any easier a sell than Iran. Iran is building nukes! Bush made it clear who the axis of terror nations were.

    I do want my position to be clear. Taking out Saddam was important to do. For the reasons you think I somehow bought into and that Bush talked about in his SOU speech. Every reason Bush listed were good reasons and well founded. If his intent was to lie about WMDs, that's all he would have talked about.

    I understood the occupation thing, but it wasn't what I agreed with or wanted to see. I'd have arrested Saddam and left. Let the people sort out how they want to govern themselves. If they want to borrow money, lend it to them. If they want to buy stuff from us, I'm happy to trade with them.

    Iran? They had their revolution and installed their government. The sanctions are savaging them, which is terribly unfortunate. I wish there was a diplomatic solution.

    Middle East in general? Let the people sort out their own affairs.

    Halliburton was given giant no bid contracts under Clinton, too. It just happens that the company is really good at certain things and services the government needs to buy.

    Cheney sold all his stock before becoming VP. Any options he had were later sold and proceeds given to charity.

    I'm no fan of the neocons and PNAC. They do have a right to make their plans. They do have a right to serve in government. They weren't the only ones in position of power or influence. Colin Powell wasn't a member of PNAC, right? Condoleeza Rice wasn't either.
     
  6. maxiep

    maxiep RIP Dr. Jack

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    There's a reason they call the Democrats the Evil Party and the Republicans the Stupid Party.

    Yep, this is some system into which we've devolved.
     
  7. TradeNurkicNow

    TradeNurkicNow piss

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    Strange, in my neck of the woods, we say it exactly opposite.
     
  8. TradeNurkicNow

    TradeNurkicNow piss

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    We only seem to talk when we disagree though.

    I don't think it's that easy. If we could invade any country we want using simple lies, we'd do it way more often. The Iraq war, which was based on lies in my opinion, took an extended and concentrated media campaign to win the approval that it did, which wasn't much. I still believe in the fundamental ability of the American public to change things via public outrage, but there is never enough outrage to end/prevent a war.

    When it comes to Iran, I think the potential nukes are what prevents us from moving in. I think it was clear that we knew Saddam had no WMDs. I don't think we would have went in if he did. We knew there was no way we would lose.

    And again, PNAC's focus was clearly Iraq.

    No, I don't think it works that way. You can't just point at WMDs and say, "Here is the reason." It takes a media campaign. It takes lots and lots of distraction.

    Saddam was an evil motherfucker and got what he deserved. But WMDs weren't the reason since he didn't have any. So, it was his murderous, dictatorial style of government, wasn't it? Perhaps. Then why him, and why then? Why not years before? Why not some other murderous dictator?

    You would have created a vacuum in the Middle East and then left immediately?

    So what would you advocate for? America is neck deep in the affairs of the Middle East for numerous reasons.

    Cheney retired from Halliburton in 2000 and received a severance package of 36 million dollars.

    And you can't sit here and tell me that Halliburton was the best people for the job if other companies weren't even allowed into the conversation. How anti-capitalist is that?

    Right. The question to me is, did members of the Bush administration plan the invasion of Iraq before even being elected? Perhaps not technically, but I believe there is plenty of evidence to be considered either way. Certainly enough to warrant some kind of an investigation. The actions of the Obama DOJ suggests to me that there is enough evidence to make a case.
     
  9. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Sorry, but I think a lot of what you wrote is conspiracy theories and outright lies you believe. Planned before they took office, for example. Cheney was Secy of Defense under GHW Bush when they didn't go into Iraq and take out Saddam. Secy. of State Colin Powell was the general who ran the show.

    There were at least two congressional investigations into whether the administration lied about the Intel to get us into war. Neither found the administration lied at all.

    Extended media campaign? Wow. Clinton went into Kosovo under the guise of NATO. It would have been trivial for Bush to have done likewise, but the media campaign was to force him to go through the UN where it was sure that at least one of Russia or China would block it. The polls at the time of the invasion were 92% in favor of going into Iraq. 92% isn't much?

    There was no actual rush to war either. The invasion of Iraq took place well over a year after 9/11. It was subject to debate in public. Republicans wrote op-eds in the NYTimes against it. It was put to a vote before congress and passed the House 296-133 and the senate 77-23.

    To the best of everyone's knowledge, Saddam had WMDs. Bill Clinton saw the Intel right up until 2001 when W took office and said they had them (as late as 2003). Hillary, too. The long line of Democrats who were on select Intel committees and privy to all our top secret information said he had them. Foreign nations' Intelligence organizations said he had them.

    And if W was such a liar, all it would have taken was one Ollie North type dropped into some place in Iraq to "find" a test tube of weaponized germs. If anything, I was rather stunned by the honesty - when it was suspected WMDs were found, the truth was made known very quickly (a lot faster than Benghazi, for example). And they did find lots of WMDs (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/201...utm_medium=RelatedLinks&utm_campaign=Previous) but the media campaign didn't allow THAT truth to come out, eh?

    Iran didn't have nukes in 2001. To the best of our knowledge, they still don't. Never been a test explosion, for example, like the N. Koreans did.

    Halliburton? They sold off KBR (the part of the business in Iraq with those contracts) because it wasn't profitable (enough). About a year and a half before W left office, and several before the troops came home.

    And they were one of dozens of companies who got contracts to rebuild there.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/business/24halliburton.html?_r=0
     
  10. jlprk

    jlprk The ESPN mod is insane.

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    What a bunch of bullshit. You and Bush are the only defenders of that war left.

    Great stuff, Denny! Pretending to be a rube to make us laugh! That's not easy for us brains, right?
     
  11. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

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    He is not above International Law, so his impotent move is laughably desperate.
     
  12. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    WMDs were the reason because he did have them. Clinton bombed Iraq in 1998 because he had them. The UN inspectors destroyed enormous amounts of them. He used them on his own people.

    Why Saddam? Because he was a monster that we helped to make. I don't think you can say that of anywhere else in the Middle East. At one point you could have said this about the Shah. How did we help make him? He was the enemy of our enemy, Iran. We played both sides of that war, but in the end gave Saddam what he needed to win. By the time GHW Bush went to war against him, he had one of the largest military forces in the world.

    GHW Bush, Cheney, Powell, et al would not go into Iraq to take out Saddam then. The coalition was fragile. Arab nations that took part in pushing him out of Kuwait and protecting his other neighboring states would not participate in such an invasion. GHW Bush was quite public in encouraging the Iraqi people to rise up and rebel against Saddam, and suggested we'd provide support in the effort. They did rise up, no support came, and Saddam massacred them, using WMDs on the Kurds in the North, and he destroyed the livelihood of the people in the South by cutting down their date trees.

    Why in 2003? Numerous reasons.

    Because a decade+ of sanctions against Iraq were devastating to its people.

    He diverted money from oil-for-food to build palaces while the children in his country went without and died.

    The sanctions were unpopular with other nations in the world.

    Other nations were ready to normalize relations with Iraq. Air France had resumed flights to Iraq, for example.

    He used promises of oil deals to buy the favor of European countries and Russia and China if the sanctions would be ended.

    We were flying over Iraq to enforce no-fly zones so he wouldn't massacre his own people.

    His military routinely fired upon us, we routinely fired back.

    The blood of those Iraqis who did rise up against Saddam was partly on our hands.

    With him gone, sanctions could be removed, relations normalized, and the profits (in theory) would go toward building the nation instead of building palaces.
     
  13. bluefrog

    bluefrog Go Blazers, GO!

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    It looks like the U.S. didn't have a problem with WMDS, as long as they were used against Iranians

     
  14. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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  15. bluefrog

    bluefrog Go Blazers, GO!

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    America can not have it both ways. We can't discount war crimes directly attached to the USA in its war against Iran by proxy and justify an invasion of Iraq based on chemical weapons we were complicit in him using 15 years prior.
     
  16. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    I fully agree.

    We paid for that crime with our blood and treasure. And that's the point of taking out Saddam and not others.
     
  17. TradeNurkicNow

    TradeNurkicNow piss

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    Did he have nukes?
     
  18. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Israel bombed his nuclear reactor before he could build nukes.

    But nukes aren't the only WMDs. He used mustard gas and sarin gas against his own people. That's use of WMDs. Killed thousands, if not tens or even hundreds of thousands.

    And according to the Riegle report, we sold all the precursors of biological weapons to various institutions (hospitals, research labs, universities) in Iraq. Fronts for his WMD programs.

    The bio weapons are the scariest kind of WMDs, I think.

    For example, we sold Iraq resistant strains of germs. In hospitals, people get treated with various drugs and the bugs mutate and become impervious to the drugs. Over time, we force the bugs to mutate to the point where none of our drugs work. These resistant bugs are kept in storage for research use. We sold some to Iraq.

    Bio weapons would be an engineered resistant strain of something like anthrax (which we also sold to Iraq). People get sick and die. The cures don't work because the germs are immune to our drugs.

    Consider a homicide bomber who's willing to blow himself up in a pizza place to kill 100 people. Inject a guy like that with the bug, let it gestate, and get him a ticket on a plane to Heathrow.

    Gas bombs kill thousands. Nukes kill millions. Bugs kill billions.
     
  19. 3RA1N1AC

    3RA1N1AC 00110110 00111001

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    [​IMG]

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    Last edited: Aug 26, 2013

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