House, 218 to 212, Votes to Set Date for Iraq Pullout

[Ibby]

Am I the only one who remembers India/Pakistan - and wasnt even alive for it?

Partition, especially imposed partition, will leave us with even worse than that disaster.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Ibram

Am I the only one who remembers India/Pakistan - and wasnt even alive for it?

Partition, especially imposed partition, will leave us with even worse than that disaster.

The biggest problem with it is the wholescale movements of peoples. This is something the UN is completely against. But of course this is the same UN that sat on it's hands (including the US) while 800,000 were murdered in 4 months in Rawanda. It would be quite upsetting but it may avoid another Rawanda or similar genocide. Put like peoples together. What is the other option if we do what most on here and in the US are chanting, "US Out!"?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

The one remark I have to make here is that the national leadership of the Dem Party is behaving as I said it would: either treasonably or stupidly. And Nancy Pelosi says she's proud of this? Dumb.

Since they are so incapable of serving the Republic's interest and that of humanity at large, the Dumbs should go the way of the Whig Party.

Meanwhile, I need to go yank the chains of a couple of Senators, and bitch out at least one Representative. The other one's a Republican, and has not been caught trying to lose the war.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Since they are so incapable of serving the Republic's interest and that of humanity at large, the Dumbs should go the way of the Whig Party.

Foreign wars don't serve the Republic.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Griff, if you believe that one, you don't believe in libertarianism at all.

Allow me to explain.

Just as a Republic prospers best in a world full of other Republics, and a libertarian republic ditto -- this is a neocon idea no one can refute -- a democratic republic is best served by actively making other democratic republics. There is also history to consider: democratic republics make far less trouble for other republics and the world at large than un-republican un-democracies do. This game, I think, is well worth the candle. And does anybody really care what the fascists think, or whether their feelings might be hurt as we deprive them of power and of bloodshed on a whim? Exempli gratia, Uday and Qusay. Does anyone really want what such as these want, aside from the remarkably submissive?

We've got the better idea. We should propagate it. And we should wipe out all resistance, either by conversion (best) or the sword (second best, but tolerable). Foreign peace, I agree, serves the Republic best, but since when was the world ever that perfect? Note that we do not start wars, not within living memory. That takes it out of our political tradition. We let those other guys do the war starting.

[elSicomoro]

Wow...

[Happy Monkey]

We started the Iraq war, in every sense of the word. Moving backward in time: We obviously started it when Bush invaded. We started it when Bush 1 attacked. We started it when Bush 1's ambassador gave Saddam the go-ahead to invade Kuwait. We started it when we supported Saddam's ascent to power.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

We started it when Bush 1's ambassador gave Saddam the go-ahead to invade Kuwait.

WOW! Got something to back that up? I haven't heard that one before. Enlighten me...

So we told them to invade so we could then go kick thier asses? Oh, ok, I think I get it. But I don't really believe it.

[Happy Monkey]

Here.

[TheMercenary]

So you have taken one side of the controversial interpretation as fact? Clearly there is disagreement as to what was said and how it was interpreted. Given Saddams obvious intention to invade, he was going to see her comments in what ever light suited him. The guy was not an idiot, except for the fact that he continually underestimated what our response to his action would be.

"Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, writing in the New York Times on September 21, 2003, disagrees with this analysis: "In fact, all the evidence indicates the opposite: Saddam Hussein believed it was highly likely that the United States would try to liberate Kuwait but convinced himself that we would send only lightly armed, rapidly deployable forces that would be quickly destroyed by his 120,000-man Republican Guard. After this, he assumed, Washington would acquiesce to his conquest." Tariq Aziz claimed in a 1996 PBS interview that Iraq "had no illusions" prior to the invasion of Kuwait about the likelihood of U.S. military intervention."

"In April 1991 Glaspie testified before the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate. She said that at the July 25 meeting she had "repeatedly warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein against using force to settle his dispute with Kuwait." She also said that Saddam had lied to her by denying he would invade Kuwait. Asked to explain how Saddam could have interpreted her comments as implying U.S. approval for the invasion of Kuwait, she replied: "We foolishly did not realize he [Saddam] was stupid."

[tw]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

WOW! Got something to back that up? I haven't heard that one before. Enlighten me...

One cannot be enlightened when one already knows from a political agenda. Diane Sawyer's 60 Minute interview, Amb. Glaspie's statements, and statements made by a visiting American congressional delagation all told Saddam that he could invade Kuwait.

Glaspie's comments in your own post are correct. She told Saddam that Kuwait was not to be invaded. And as the tape even shows, that same comment from Saddam's perspective is permission to attack Kuwait.

But then this is common knowledge to those who learn from history rather than know how history should read. Others have accurately stated why Saddam invaded. He thought he had American permission. He was rather surprised and unprepared for what happened next.

What Happy Monkey posted has long been known fact. You own quotes are correct and agree with what Happy Monkey when we include all facts. Saddam repeatedly thought of himself as an ally of the US. A fact that gets lost when political agendas automatically paint Saddam as a vicious enemy just waiting to attack America. He never was. Saddam never had intent to attack America. Saddam’s objectives were limited to the Middle East.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by tw

What Happy Monkey posted has long been known fact.

In fact that is incorrect and if you would have read the link he posted as evidence to support his position you would have learned that the issue is controversial. In fact there is no agreement as to what Saddam thought or how he interpreted the comments by the Ambassador. In fact, as I clearly pointed out, his intentions were obvious when he massed troops on the border. Either way I find it a somewhat mute observation, I was not a mystery what he had intended to do. And in the end he got his eye blackend and his nose bloodied for it. Your myopic interpretations of my assessment are continually deluded by you own personal bias.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

And does anybody really care what the fascists think, or whether their feelings might be hurt as we deprive them of power and of bloodshed on a whim?

You are the only one arguing for the fascists on this one.

Originally Posted by UG

We've got the better idea. We should propagate it. And we should wipe out all resistance, either by conversion (best) or the sword (second best, but tolerable). Foreign peace, I agree, serves the Republic best, but since when was the world ever that perfect? Note that we do not start wars, not within living memory. That takes it out of our political tradition. We let those other guys do the war starting.

I must have been out the day that the small potatoes, local nutter, Hussein attacked the USA. Quit pretending to have libertarian beliefs. Bottom line, NEO-CON = NAZI, the Republic cannot survive much more of this nonsense.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Griff

the Republic cannot survive much more of this nonsense.

I would agree. But don't you think we need to cautious about the swing of the pendulum?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I would agree. But don't you think we need to cautious about the swing of the pendulum?

To what? What is the "Democrats are equally bad" thing that the Democrats will do?

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

In fact that is incorrect and if you would have read the link he posted as evidence to support his position you would have learned that the issue is controversial. In fact there is no agreement as to what Saddam thought or how he interpreted the comments by the Ambassador. In fact, as I clearly pointed out, his intentions were obvious when he massed troops on the border. Either way I find it a somewhat mute observation, I was not a mystery what he had intended to do.

Exactly. So the ambassador's protestations that she had no idea what he meant ring hollow.