Secret And Strictly Personal - Uk Eyes Only

kach22i · kach22i's Garage

The secret Downing Street memo (3-pages)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607_1,00.html

Quote:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

Quote:

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

IMPEACH BUSH

widebody911 · widebody911's Garage

I was tempted to post this a week or so ago, but I just wasn't up for another round of "try to explain the obvious to the NeoCon"

FrayAdjacent911 · 06-03-2005, 01:04 PM

Yeah... freeing people from a vicious dictator wasn't good enough.

Guess we should have left Hitler alone, huh?

For wanting peace and equality, the left really hates it when we bring freedom to other peoples. It's good enough for you, but not for everyone else, huh?

widebody911 · widebody911's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by FrayAdjacent911
Yeah... freeing people from a vicious dictator wasn't good enough.

Guess we should have left Hitler alone, huh?

For wanting peace and equality, the left really hates it when we bring freedom to other peoples. It's good enough for you, but not for everyone else, huh?

Ya know, you NeoCon Gruppe-ies could save a lot of b/w by assigning numbers to the lame-ass Iraq excuses, so with each successive escalation of IraqNam, you could just post something like "42, 16, 27"

Bonus points for playing the Hitler card on the 3rd post!

kach22i · kach22i's Garage

Like little moths that eat holes in your favorite sweater, Neo-Cons keep coming back.

How do we get rid of these pest?

FrayAdjacent911 · 01:27 PM

What you don't realize is, I'm actually laughing. I love laughing at you anti war types. You're STILL looking for excuses and dirt.

Face it, what is done is done. Iraq is a better place than it was. It's still rough, but heck, it took over 7 years to stabilize Germany after WWII.

And you can label me what you like. I'm actually very centrist. I don't LOVE Bush. I think he was a better choice than the alternative. I believe the war in Iraq was a good thing, regardless of what you want to believe is an excuse. (we know Hussein pursued nuclear weapons, and actually used chemical weapons on his people... and we also know that several hundred thousand bodies have been found in mass graves... and that thousands of political prisoner's treatment, no, TORTURE was documented)

If it were up to me, I'd invade and overthrow every tyrant on this earth, and bring freedom and democracy to the people. I figured you guys would want the same, since you supposedly support democracy. Or don't you?

And if you want to beat your chests with the 'neo-con' or Bush bashing, check out democraticunderground.com. You can preach to the choir and pat yourselves on the back all day long over there.

gaijindabe · 06-03-2005, 01:26 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by kach22i
[B]The secret Downing Street memo (3-pages)

[/url]

Is this more or less secret than the Air National Guard documents and the proof of flushing the Koran?

Hugh R · 06-03-2005, 01:38 PM

Kach and Wide,

I agree with you, we should just let all these dictators rape and murder 10's of thousands of their citizens. Let them have their own civil wars and kill each other. We should cut off foreign aid to ALL countries, "F" them, when was the last time any of them helped the US?

creaturecat · 06-03-2005, 02:13 PM

Actually it was Bush who was recently responsible for the murder of 10's of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians - many of them women and children. Actually the Iraqis are having a civil war - thanks to the US imperialist policy. Hope this makes you happy.

lendaddy · 06-03-2005, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by creaturecat
Actually it was Bush who was recently responsible for the murder of 10's of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians - many of them women and children. Actually the Iraqis are having a civil war - thanks to the US imperialist policy. Hope this makes you happy.

No chit? Man I knew W could multi-task....but damn, 10's of thousands! And he still finds time to jog!

creaturecat · 06-03-2005, 02:30 PM

Perhaps you think this is something to joke about. A mature adult would think otherwise.

FrayAdjacent911 · 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by creaturecat
Actually it was Bush who was recently responsible for the murder of 10's of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians - many of them women and children. Actually the Iraqis are having a civil war - thanks to the US imperialist policy. Hope this makes you happy.

Man, I bet you'd wet your pants and cry like a baby if you knew how many innocent civilians were killed in WWII. Cities were indiscriminantly bombed... firebombed... and of course, nuked.

Can you say that it was completely wrong? That the war was not justified because some innocents died?

As for imperialist... How many countries has the US taken over and claimed for itself? Let's see... we invaded Normandy (France), Belgium, Holland, North Africa, Italy, Germany, Korea and Vietnam. How many of those territories belong to the US now? What? None? How is that an empire??

... the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots...

Quote:

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
-John Stewart Mill

lendaddy · 06-03-2005, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by creaturecat
Perhaps you think this is something to joke about. A mature adult would think otherwise.

Oh......you were serious?

When was he even over there?

lendaddy · 06-03-2005, 02:48 PM

Wait, did he do this over Thanksgiving? That could be I guess, I saw pictures of him with the troops. I find it hard to believe he managed to kill all those people without anyone noticing, but I'll just trust you on this one I guess.

Hugh R · 06-03-2005, 03:19 PM

I'd love to get into this, but I have to hit-and-run. I'll be out of the country for the next several weeks. But I stand by what I said, maybe it would have been better if we had just let Saddam stay in power and continue to kill 10's of thousands of his own people. There are two answers to invading Iraq, either we did, or we didn't if you don't think we should have gone in, then letting Saddam continue HIS killing must be OK with you. Is it time to get out and let them sink or swim? In my opinion, yes.

skipdup · 06-03-2005, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lendaddy
Wait, did he do this over Thanksgiving? That could be I guess, I saw pictures of him with the troops. I find it hard to believe he managed to kill all those people without anyone noticing, but I'll just trust you on this one I guess.

LMAO

skipdup · 06-03-2005, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hugh R
Is it time to get out and let them sink or swim? In my opinion, yes.

WHAT? They would have been much better off had we never gone in. Now that we started, we MUST finish. Would be much worse to cut and run. Everyone who has started to side with us and more importantly the new form of government would be cut down overnight. We MUST finish what we started.

- Skip

CamB · CamB's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by FrayAdjacent911
If it were up to me, I'd invade and overthrow every tyrant on this earth, and bring freedom and democracy to the people. I figured you guys would want the same, since you supposedly support democracy. Or don't you?

You might, but not everyone agrees. Many even wonder if the money spent on the invasion and "peace" might have been able to accomplish the same thing with less death and destruction.

There are two key things here:

1) Is it morally right to invade and overthrow dictatorships/governments purely because they aren't free or have human rights abuses? Or does it simply replace the concept of sovereignty with the moral standpoint of the largest/richest/most powerful country.

2) The war in Iraq was sold on WMD/terror links/Saddam=bad man. That memo specifically refers to Washington's intention to fit the facts to the (pre-determined) justification. You (American people) were mislead - apparently deliberately - as to the strength of the case against Iraq. The case has since fallen down - precisely because the outcome was decided in absence of the facts.

War and invasion is not the only way of solving the world's problems, and this memo tends to suggest that your government (and that in the UK) has a remarkably cavalier attitude to other nations' sovereignty, their civilians, and the UN. Interestingly, this doesn't appear to extend to North Korea ---> the hypocrisy is spread pretty thick on that.

FrayAdjacent911 · 06-03-2005, 05:02 PM

Cam,

I don't refute that facts may have been misrepresented. Hell, government is government, and politicians are politicians. I don't like any of them very much. Agendas do exist.

It could quite possibly be that the 'excuse' for invasion was not solid. Evidence supporting it did not materialize.

What we do know now, and before this thing started is, that Saddam WAS a very EVIL man. The people suffered greatly because of him. He has pursued nuclear weapons, and has actually USED chemical weapons. All of this, and 10 years of pussyfooting around with the UN over inspections (the UN, who has the 'moral authority' to make every judgement in international matters... like the League of Nations who didn't do crap to stop Hitler when they could have...)

The end result is still vastly more desireable than the previous conditions. I think Iraq will become a very prosperous and democratic nation.

I just wish people would stop pissing and moaning about it. What's done is done, and the best thing for us to do is see it through. Those of us domestically can also just deal with it. Bush won't be in office forever, and cannot be reelected. You are, of course, free to ***** and moan, but I wish you would just STFU and put your vote where your mouth is in the next election.

turbo6bar · 06-03-2005, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by CamB
2) The war in Iraq was sold on WMD/terror links/Saddam=bad man. That memo specifically refers to Washington's intention to fit the facts to the (pre-determined) justification. You (American people) were mislead - apparently deliberately - as to the strength of the case against Iraq. The case has since fallen down - precisely because the outcome was decided in absence of the facts.

I was originally for the war, when the justification was WMD. I did not object to attacking Iraq without UN approval. If there was a true threat to the US, we should act. However, the US government acknowledges the intelligence was wrong. We started a war based on false intelligence.

The liberation theme is a bit shallow. If we've got the balls to invade Iraq to free the people, why don't we use those balls to invade countries in Africa and Asia? China is known to trample human rights, and yet we're their best trading partner. Cuba has been ripe for an invasion for how long?

The war in Iraq is a power grab. Of course we aren't there to steal their oil. We are there to control the region. If we control the region, we control the trade and commerce, perhaps even catch a terrorist or two every now and then.

Quote:

I just wish people would stop pissing and moaning about it. What's done is done, and the best thing for us to do is see it through. Those of us domestically can also just deal with it. Bush won't be in office forever, and cannot be reelected. You are, of course, free to ***** and moan, but I wish you would just STFU and put your vote where your mouth is in the next election.

If you are so quick to just "deal with it," why can't you just deal with the fact Saddam murdered lots of civilians. Maybe the US should stop pissing and moaning about Saddam's evil regime, right? If China invaded Hawaii based on false intelligence, would you want China to be punished, or would you say,"What's done is done!"