You know, Neville Chamberlain may have caused more harm than good and certainly was a colossal failure if measured by results... but damn if that guy wasn't a sophisticated thinker.

Not your finest hour Rick. Never compare yourself with Churchill. It's embarrassing.

Churchill always oversold how bad things were, counter to you and President Bush and the neocon Kool-Aid crew.

What's that Lloyd Bentsen quote?

I didn't compare myself with Churchill. I compared his world view to that of Chamberlain.

Kissinger = Cheney

I tuly do understand your analogy, and your conclusion. Chamberlain was dead wrong to attempt to deal with Hitler that way. And Churchill became a lightning rod. Thank God.

But again (and again and again and again) that situation was very different. There are many substantial differences. Germany was not engaging in a holy war with England. It was simply engaging in a plain ol' military conquest. It intended to control Europe at the least, and perhaps the world. Another difference is that in WW2, the enemy was a nation. With a capitol called "Berlin" and a leader called "Hitler." Conquer that piece of land and occupy Berlin, take Hitler out of the picture and you're done. Germany wasn't going to set up sleeper cells in Philadephia. Many many differences.

As I said, if only things were a simple as you guys are pretending..........

The world and especially my country is going to have quite a massive cleanup operation to conduct once your guys have finished kicking this beehive. Oh, and by they way, there is one similarity that I think is important. Al Queda has a leader. And your "president" has announced that he doesn't give a rat's ass where bin Laden is or what he's doing. That's PATHETIC as well as incompetent. I truly believe that just about anyone I know would make a better President than your guy. Anybody with a spine would have made damn sure that bin Laden went DOWN. Anybody with a brain would have put more effort into covert operations and intelligence than attacking a sovereign nation that hated binLaden.

Shaun,

I'm not picking on you specifically. I just had to quote you because you dragged out the Neo-Con label. Others have referred to liberals.

The irony is that the difference between the two is virtually nothing:

Let's look at the record of the past 60 to 100 years

Liberals have given us:

Over regulation
Tax and Spend
Balooning Federal Goverment
Protracted wars and police actions
Loss of personal liberties

Neo Cons have given us:

Even more regulation from the FedGov
More spending/keep taxing
Growing Federal Bureaucracy
Some more wars and police actions
Continued loss of personal liberties

irrational exuberance -- among Bush-bashing war opponents
 

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg18sep18,0,3784.column?coll=la-home-commentary

excerpt:

Greenspan claims that the quote was taken out of context. Greenspan called the Post -- Bob Woodward, no less -- to say that, in fact, he didn't think the White House was motivated by oil. Rather, he was. A Post story Monday explained that Greenspan had long favored Saddam Hussein's ouster because the Iraqi dictator was a threat to the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world's oil passes every day. Hussein could have sent the price of oil way past $100 a barrel, which would have inflicted chaos on the global economy.

In other words, Greenspan favored the war on the grounds that it would stabilize the flow of oil, even though that wasn't the war's political underpinning. "I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan told Woodward, "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."

I don't see how Iraq, at least after 1991, posed any threat to the Straits of Hormuz. Saddam was screaming out for a spanking in many other ways. But disrupting oil flow in the Straits was not one of them. Iran, on the other hand, does have that capability.

Saddam was marginal. Simply not a legitimate threat to anybody outside Iraq. I was more afraid of Ronald McDonald. But he did control a country that is floating on a sea of oil. Dubya thought this would be easier, with everyone hating Saddam and all. But then, Dubya has made it clear he does not read periodical publications, and does not give any regard to popular opinion. So.......that's how he failed to notice what EVERYONE ELSE could see clearly.

Too bad the international intelligence community isn't as knowledgeable as you are. After Gulf War I, in a rare moment of self-criticism, Saddam told his inner circle that he should have waited until they had finished their nuke before invading Kuwait (and then Saudi Arabia). He figured the US wouldn't have dared to try to stop him then. Ken Pollack's book mentions that Saddam would have threatened a nuclear scorched earth policy against the Saudi oil fields -- removing 1/5 of the world's oil production for a decade.

Not as frightening as Ronald McDonald, I suppose...

I guess I can conclude that you're one of those folks who still believe Saddam had WMD. That helps me evaluate your posts.

Did you feel this way when Clinton signed a law stating it was the policy of this country to remove Saddam from power? You think a guy who attacked three of his neighboring countries was not a threat to anyone outside Iraq? I guess you'd just have the UN keep Saddam in his box, since the UN could never be bought off or unduly influenced.

Well, Saddam's invading his neighbors had nothing to do with WMD, but it sure constituted a threat outside of Iraq. Oh, and he did use chemical weapons against Iran. Supe, why didn't you write letters to all the major intel. agencies of the world and tell them they were all wrong? I'm sure they would have appreciated it.

I'm not in the spy game. I deferred to what the intelligence community concluded in 2002.

See new thread regarding Syrian-Iranian joint program to develop missile based Chemical weapons.

That's pretty funny, Rearden. You won't see the humor because you've got the Selective News Acceptance syndrome yourself. Even recently, there has been talk about a certain visit payed to a certain very sick man in a hospital bed in an attempt to get him to modify his intelligence report. Fact is (and I wonder if you can see this portion of my post here, or if it's just redacted out by your mind), the intelligence community did not conclude that Saddam had WMD. Instead, they warned Dubya against that conclusion. Sure, he had used some gasses, or at least there were reports. But nobody in the intelligence community had any real belief that Saddam was anywhere near substantial progress in a nuclear weapons program. Like if you were going to build a bicycle and all you had was a playing card for the future spokes. That would be similar to his atomic weapons program. The intelligence community knew that. Dubya did too, but deliberately chose to mischaracterize.

Can't argue with any of that. The only good thing you can say is that Liberals wouldn't have gone to war with Iraq.

I think Bill Clinton is the worst President ever. Because of his personal failings and penchant for tubby girls, we now have the second worst President ever.

Delusional at best. yes, some in the IC concluded Saddam had WMD. But there were so many facts to the contrary that should have been better heeded, that you come off as quaint and childlike in your naïveté.

If you actually care to learn what the international intelligence community assessment of Iraq and WMD circa 2001-02 is, read this book.

The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, by Kenneth M. Pollack

About the Author
Kenneth M. Pollack wrote this book as Olin Senior Fellow and Director of National Security Studies for the Council on Foreign Relations. From 1995 to 1996 and from 1999 to 2001, he served as director for Gulf affairs at the National Security Council, where he was the principal working-level official responsible for implementation of U.S. policy toward Iraq. Prior to his time in the Clinton administration, he spent seven years in the CIA as a Persian Gulf military analyst. He is also the author of Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991. He is a graduate of Yale University and received a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.



As The Economist book review said at the time it was published, "(one) shouldn't listen to what anybody has to say on Iraq unless they have read this book".

To look back in hindsight, revising history as you do, is a hallmark of naïveté. Do yourself a favor and supplement the reading of your lefty blogs with the occasional book.

Ahhhh, we get to the heart of it: You so badly want to believe something, you make it part of your reality. I've never even visited a lefty blog, but you know, you just know, that it's GOT to be true, that I because I dissent from the Bushie's that I must be a part of the lefty blog set. :rolleyes: It's so clear to you it must be true.

But you have nothing more than your own thoughts to confirm that supposition-turned-fact in your brain. Same with Saddam's WMD. The Media rushed to support Bush after 9/11 lest be labeled traitors. Any dissenting information, from within and outside the government was treated as scurrilous, unofficial, uninformed...but it was correct.

But you so badly wanted to stand by your man, break the glass and grab the big hammer and start whacking at Saddam. Because dammit, I'm not waiting for the mushroom cloud (see Jeff Higgins on drunk driving).

Here's something to consider. Reading books is great. Newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc. are all worthy endeavors. But let's work on Critical Thinking a little. Our Country can't afford citizens such as yourself following lockstep behind any government, Left or Right. You are analogous to the huge shout from the Left that the stain on the blue dress was planted, wasn't semen at all... that the dress was green, that Clinton didn't lie.

Just stop believing just to believe, or just to fit in, or just to be on a side.