One other thing, is the enemy of my enemy my friend? That attitude has got us in trouble in the past.

Hopefully we learn from the mistakes of the past so that we can avoid history repeating itself in the form of Hitler, Stalin, or Rwanda.

Do we know everything that Bush knows? No.

Is there a requirement that we do know everthing? No.

Is it realistic to believe that we must know everything that goes on behind the scenes, regardless of how the release of that knowledge would affect national security? No.

Were there statements made, based on flawed intelligence? Probably.

Do the ends justify the means? Sometimes yes.

What I am saying is that in this age of the sound bite, it has become necessary to win the hearts and minds of the American public prior to the US Government taking action. In the past, the government acted. Sometimes not so well (picking the wrong enemy of our enemy to make friends with), other times very well.

Does Saddam deserve to rule his country with an iron fist? Definitely no.

The argument that Bush didn't tell us the whole truth, or told us the truth as he believed it, has upset your feelings, while agreeing that Saddam is a very bad guy who needed to be dealt with is lame. Stop feeling hurt because someone didn't tell you the whole truth. Get over it.

Is the end the same as if Dubya took you aside, told you all of the secrets, then removed him? Yes.

Grandpa2: Jimmy Carter and North Korea? Are you talking about 1994 where he brokered an agreement to moth ball a North korean nuclear facility suspected of making weapons? Or are you talking about the past week or so where he was in Tokyo for humanitarian reasons that had nothing to do with North korea? Jimmy Carter is about the best we have right now on the foreign relations front. he is well respected throughout the world but this president shuns his use because of his party affiliation and, in my opinion, because he is a broker of peace not war. I thought Colin Powell was going to be the next great FR man but his wings were clipped and all credibility lost while towing the Bush isolationist policies. On religion....I don't recall seeing any anti-god anti-religion posts. I do recall posts that were anti-forced religion, seperation of church and state, which I completely agree with. Your religious beliefs are your own and should stay that way.
Dogfish: You have no patience for people who "assume" yet you are basing an awful lot and the lives of many americans on assumptions. Why was Saddam an imminent threat? Bush didn't tell the whole truth? So far it appears he didn't tell any truth. Did he believe he was telling us the truth? Evidence from the pentagon and the CIA show that it is very unlikley he could have not known his statements and "evidence" were false. So, either he is an extremely inept president, which is believable, or a liar. Of course there will always be a percentage of the population that believes there is evidence but it's top secret just like people who deny the holocaust but the percentage is rapidly shrinking.
Either way, we are now in a quagmire not unlike Russia's Afghanistan. This could very well be the first big step towards the fall of the last superpower.

Jimmy tried to appease the North Koreans and they snowed him and Bill Clinton and came back more crazy than before.

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman!"

Every modern day president has made mistatements or told lies to the US.

Lets put Saddam back in power then and walk away. I'm sure that he and Sally Struthers will meet up very soon to work on their plan for Feed the Children.

How many more people did we need to let him torture or kill before we acted? Did we only need to act if attacked us directly. How many more martyrs families were going to receive their $25,000 from him before it would be acceptable for you to act?

BTW, my assumption tag line is related to a number of baseless assumptions made by other folks here who basically called me a poacher or someone who doesn't follow the fishing regulations.

I'm really thinking we should be talking more about Osama Bin Laden and Al Quaeda and less about Saddam and the reasons for an operation that's already taken place.

You?

Or next thing you know there will be no voting at all. At some point decisions need to be justified.

Dogfish, how many lives did Clinton cost by lying about s*x? You do know he's been out of office for three years now don't you?
Was Washington lying when he said "I cannot tell a lie"? He probably was so that justifies both Clinton and Bush.

We are trying for nine pages here so maybe the new question should be: Should the president of the United States be required to justify waging war at all? If so why?

Dogfish, you said:

"What I am saying is that in this age of the sound bite, it has become necessary to win the hearts and minds of the American public prior to the US Government taking action. "

Actually I'd prefer a straight shooter.
If GW had said outright "we think he has WMD, we think he's supporting terrorists financially, and we all KNOW he's a murderous SOB, and we're gonna STOP him", I'd have appreciated his honesty and just set myself up for the bumpy road. I don't expect him to tell us everything, I just expect him not to bull**** me. I got enough of that from the last buffoon.

Incidentally, you're gonna have to work a lot harder than that to insult or offend me, Dogfish.

Dan S. - word.

But really, I'd prefer to hear that they've both been identified by their dental records.

What has not been decided by Congess is whether to grant the President the additional 87 million, ah excuse me billion. While most of us don't want to leave a bigger mess that we've already created, to simply burry our heads in the sand is short sighted, as this request for $$ won't be the last.... Remember, when George Sr. started this the 1st time, he spent 8 Billion.

Yes he does have to justify war to congress but ultimately to the American people.
Otherwise why make speeches? Too bad the entire process isn't done in secret. Couldn't very well accuse him of lying then.

The out of retirement senior member of the "liberal media" Cronkite has a good column today about the U.S. eating crow with the U.N. thanks to this administrations miscalculations. "This might be about as embarassing a position as this nation has ever suffered in international affairs."

That reminds me that there are still a lot more nations that we haven't made pay for 9-11.
Throwing a dart at the map I choose......China. Let's roll!!

How am I going to help cut the deficit by having my job (and a couple hundred others here) sent to China?

goharley

You almost make me physically sick. Sorry but that's the effect your attitude has on me.

Grandpa 2 - I second the sickness


Bush bashers SUCK!!!

Is it Bush Bashing to question weather or nopt there was a link between Bin Laden and Saddam? There has been absolutly no evidence of such a link. Don't you think Bush would quickly show us the evisdence if he had it? It seems to me that it is now prettyy unlikely that Saddam had those weapons of mass destruction we heard so much about. I actually beleived Bush on that. Now I beleive he was misinformed or purpously lied. Only tiime will tell on that, but it doesn't seem unreasonabl;e or unpatriotic to question this link that has not been shown to exist.

I do not think I am a Bush basher, just a person who knows that presidents lie to us. We know Nixon did, we know LBJ did we know Clinton did. Is there some reason to think Bush would not?

In fact we know that the Whitehouse made the EPA change their report on the safety of the air around the World Trade Center. It is a fact that there were many harmful chemicals in the air and the whitehouse lied about that.

Try to understand that even Presidents you voted for and support might lie.

It keeps going round and round, but the bottom line is that there is no connection between terrorism and Iraq. The two factions hate each other. They hate each other and they hate us but that does not make them a common enemy. As Goharley mentions, if a lie is told often enough, it becomes reality. Certainly there is enough press to validate any connections that the Bush administation would lead us to believe, and there isn't a press story out there that will confirm that!

We were then told to believe that war was imminiment. Bush was unable to convince any other country with the information that he had. Don't you think if the information was good enough that other countries (heads of state) would have bought in on it? Certainly they are at liberty to discuss classified issues and still, Bush could not convince them.

It is far easier to just believe in what the Bush administration wants you to believe than to actually have to think yourself and/or listen and research various sources to gain perspective on the matter. If you choose to simply be a believer, then fine, but accept that you are not able to process information on your own, that you simply believe something rather than have the capacity to observe something and come to your own conclusions.