Your reaching pal. If you want to give Bush some credit for putting the plan in motion, fine, have it your way. But the fact remains that Obama made good on his word during the 2008 election to end the Iraq war and to double the efforts in Afghanistan, where our real beef was in the first place before we got side tracked. Do you deny this simple fact? In 1982 the unemployment rate hit 10.8% during Reagan's administration, which by the way was a mere 30 years ago. Was it Reagan's fault that the unemployment rate was 10.8% or was it Jimmy Carter's fault? Sport.
Read my post NC, my point was that you invented history by implying Bush and Cheney made a pack of lies on their own to start a war. They used what was considered by most other countries such as England, France, Germany (who sold Saddam the tools to make WMDs), Russia who did the same and Iran (who helped us early in the war) solid intelligence and was in fact generated by their own intelligence sources. They all believed that there were WMDs in Iraq.
Have it my way? Does that mean you see the point that the work was done by Bush and Obama merely followed it out. BTW there is no denying that the war was so unpopular that to do anything else was suicidal. Are you saying Barry led by following???? As usual that may be right. By doubling down in Afghanistan The current president wasted by several times the number of lives and threw billions of dollars down the rat hole that country is. I thought Bush should have gotten out early and Obama by doing what he did and is doing with this pact is compounding the waste. To see otherwise is to blindly follow your president from failure to failure.
Winston, you are missing the point. Forget about WMD's altogether (I'll go back to them later in this post) and recall that we were pursuing Al Queda for the 9/11 attacks and Al Queda was not in Iraq. So we went from pursuing the terrorists who killed Americans on 9/11 to completely changing the subject altogether and focusing on Iraq, who had not one single thing to do with the 9/11 attacks. It was a war of convenience and choice. And to your point, I did not invent history at all: Bush and Cheney went looking for a justification to go to war with Iraq, we were never provoked by Iraq. Now going back to the WMD's, I am not unrealistic enough to say that there wasn't faulty intelligence from various sources but was it enough to justify all out war? All we did was take our eye off the ball and lost thousands of American lives in the process of doing so, not to mention make a lot of enemies in an area of the world that didn't need provoking to hate us in the first place. Yes, Bush and Cheney used faulty intelligence to take us into war but there was never a reason in the first place to worry about Iraq. Iraq, at least for Bush, was fear that Saddam might team up with the terrorists and give them chemical weapons. For Cheney, I believe the motivations were far more sinister. But make no mistake, they led us into something when there was nothing.
My point was simple and clearly made, Winston. Tigerstailgating made an untrue statement about Obama's policy in Afghanistan and I called him on it. Obama made it a cornerstone of his campaign in 2008 that he would end the Iraq War and he did. He also promised that upon ending the Iraq War he would also double our efforts in Afghanistan to arrange a situation where we could leave with on our own terms like we did in Iraq. Next year we will achieve that goal also, with the exception of an ancillary force of eight to ten thousand to help to train, etc. The same was offered to Iraq but they refused, remember? It is not following anything blindly to want our President to have a policy of making our mission goals specific, following the plan and ending the war responsibly. It always sounds good to cut and run when brought up around the water cooler but how did that work out in Vietnam? It didn't. So, if you want to make us look like real dumbasses then yes, we could just cut and run, but guys like you would be screaming, "oh, look how Obama makes us look weak by running away....." So what gives?
Finally NC you've back off the implication there were lies about WMDs. That they were used for justification is not arguable and I never said otherwise. It is the swell of liberal propaganda that they were lies made specifically by Bush and Cheney is what I read in your post and take exception to. Likewise I object to giving Obama credit for doing something he neither initiated or had any option but to follow in withdrawing from Iraq. As to motives for the war I can think of several that there is some indirect evidence for. The first and I think most accurate it that there was a strong (though very mistaken) belief in Neo Con circles that Iraq was ripe for a secular democratic government if Saddam was overthrown. They believed Chalabi and Iran that he was ripe for overthrow. It has been easily forgotten that Bush had been a strong advocate for democratizing the ME even going as far as to push the Saudis and Kuwaitis. They believed a successful Iraq would cause a wave of similar events in the rest of the ME. If you remember Ghaddafi immediately changed his tune and realigned. This was fantasy but Bush did more over his time before the invasion of Iraq to encourage change in the ME than Obama thought of. There are books published noting that Iran helped us significantly in the beginning of the war so again there was incentive to improve relations there as well. While it is obvious that the hope Iraq would become a secular democracy was faint at best Bush's fatal flaw was the inept way the first part of the occupation was run. They did the exact opposite of what would have been successful from leaving Saddam's ammo dumps unguarded (thereby arming the insurgency), dismissing the Iraqi army without pay (giving a large segment of the population a grudge to grind) to putting Paul Bremmer (a fool and a tool) in as Czar. There is much to condemn Bush for from starting the war to the way he carried out the occupation that is more than justified...BUT all the libs can do is make up lies to save their faces as they voted to support Bush. BTW I don't blame them for voting for the war even if the held their noses to do so. They had justification they just don't want to admit it now.
NC to blindly follow a policy because a pledge was made is not always the best policy. Obama's pledge is a poor one and if you know anything about the history of that poor country you would know that this will end badly. The Afghans have thrown out every invader in history. Forget Alexander and the others in ancient history. Begin with the Brits and Russians in the 19th & 20th centuries. The style of warfare has been constant and they will have broken 3 super powers by just hanging on. They will/have worn us out. When we leave be it in 2014 or 2024 the result will remain the same. The Taliban (local leaders) will take over and the 12th century will return to the country. The only difference will be in how many American soldiers are killed and how much it costs. Do you dispute that can you in good faith? IS THAT WORTH A CAMPAIGN PLEDGE? As I speculated on why Bush invaded Afghanistan, I'll do the same for Obama's pledge. In 2008 Afghanistan was the "good war" as opposed to Iraq being the bad war. It was an easy pledge to make that would make Obama look like a serious player on the "tough man" stage and not a limp wristed anti war liberal. There has never been hope of bring that country into the modern world and to say so is either blindness or lying to the country.
Your list of motives for the war are not the ones the American people were given at the time, nor are they in keeping with the US's policy of not being a nation builder. It is not our place to decide how other countries govern themselves and for you to now say that the reasons for war were not WMD's, but in fact because Bush and Cheney and their neo-con buddies could implement a radical policy of over throwing governments and nation building. If that is indeed what you are saying then you are absolutely, 100%, unequivocally proving my point. Bush and Cheney wanted to try out their radical new foreign policy and the WMD story gave them the perfect excuse to do so. This is what always kills me when I hear today's conservatives talking about Obama's "leading from behind." I suppose if you compare Obama's foreign policy to Bush's policy of being the world's biggest ass hole then, yes, I am sure it appears lacking. That said, Obama's foreign policy has much more closely resembled that of Clinton, Bush 1 and Reagan, where we use a combination of carrots and sticks. The Bush/Cheney doctrine was widely rejected, and panned, if I do recall correctly because it proved futile and ignorant in the end. I find it humorous how you, in a round about way, are blaming liberals for the folly of the GWB administration. Sure, they should be held accountable for their votes and many of them have, (just ask Hillary about her vote during the 2008 primaries and if it cost her the nomination).
Did you actually read my post, Winston? Obama has actually made good on all those pledges so I don't see how you are making these comparisons. Your desire to see Obama fail has clouded your ability to see the truth. trying to compare our campaign there to that of the Russians in the 80's, or any others, is foolish. our campaign there has been nothing like the war that the Russians held back in the 80's when they literally got run out of the country like we did out of Vietnam. That is not going to happen this time. We are going to bring our soldiers home with dignity, just like we did with Iraq, and what those people do after we leave is their business, not ours. you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink it.
NC in your drive to find partisan points you totally miss my point. I wasn't defending W for his action going into Iraq (though I did when it started), I was explaining them as I see it. It was a total failure of policy and deserves no defense. There is no resemblance between Obama and the other administrations you note. Reagan, GHW Bush & Clinton ALWAYS put the US at the head of the free world coalition. Yes they consulted other countries and the UN....BUT GUESS WHAT so did W!!!! Both the invasion of Afghanistan & Iraq we done with UN approval and participation by multiple allies. So make things up but you can't deny the written record. Obama on the other hand has abdicated any leadership in the various crises from Egypt to Libya to Syria and been a follower to a variety of different countries' initiatives like France in Libya and Russia in Syria. In fact there was NO international authorization for the action in Libya. My comment about the Ds voting for the Iraq invasion was not to lay responsibility (that is W's) so don't go there. Try to re read my posts before you jump to conclusions. Yes I see Obama as being way over his head as President and I'll point that out when I feel. If you can defend his actions on their own merits do so (I doubt you can) but to lay blame back to the Rs and W is just whining.
