Why are we in Irak?

[12Footer]

Re: Why are we in Irak?

Just don't turn your back on them, DD. That's how thier side plans it's attacks in this war.<br />Remember, "we must remain vigilant", (GWB)

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: Why are we in Irak?

Time names Bush 2004 ‘Person of the Year’<br />Magazine chooses president for ‘sticking to his guns’<br />Updated: 9:31 a.m. ET Dec. 19, 2004NEW YORK - President Bush’s bold, uncompromising leadership and his clear-cut election victory made him Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2004, its managing editor said on Sunday.<br /><br />Time chose Bush “for sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters this time around that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years,” Jim Kelly wrote in the magazine.<br /><br />His father, President George H. W. Bush, was named “Man of the Year” in 1990 for what Time called his mastery of foreign policy and his wavering domestic record.<br /><br />Last year the magazine picked “The American Soldier.”<br /><br />Some will be pleased, others will sigh<br />“Obviously many supporters of the president will be pleased, many people who do not support the president will probably sigh,” Kelly said.<br /><br />“But even those who may not have voted for him will acknowledge that this is one of the more influential presidents of the last 50 years.”<br /><br />Kelly said he and his staff debated giving the award to others including Karl Rove, the president’s influential political adviser, and filmmakers Michael Moore and Mel Gibson.<br /><br />The winner must be “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse,” he said.<br /><br />American aviator Charles Lindbergh was Time’s first “Man of the Year” in 1927. Some selections have been notoriously unpopular, such as Adolf Hitler in 1938, Joseph Stalin in 1939 and 1942, and Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979.<br /><br />This year the magazine named the conservative “Power Line” as its first “Blog of the Year.” Kelly said blogs, Web sites that often mix news, gossip and opinion, are “here to stay.”

 

[POINTER94]

Re: Why are we in Irak?

I am going to do something I don't do very often and walk the fence. I think the above posts probably hit about 95% of the reasons we went to Iraq, and a 5% yet to be uncovered reason.<br /><br />Love it or loathe it - oil runs the world. Having a bunch of lunatics in control of 60% of it is inherantly dangerous to the worlds population and world stability. But what a coup. Eliminate one of the worlds despots, provide a stabilizing force to the region militarily, send a message to other nutjobs in the region, introduce democracy and human rights to an area long known for its abuses. Establishing a battlefront outside the homeland (USA). The ominous cloud that is china is now derailed, and china is the real threat. Look at how they were able to purchase 25 years of nuclear secrets for a few insignificant campaign contributions, can you imagine what alliances they could buy with the likes Saddam in Iraq, and the blindness for cash available through the UN, Korea, Iran, Russia, and the creation of instability within Saudi Arabia, and the complete corruption of the Mexican government available for a price? <br /><br />Anyone who thinks that Haliburton has any influence on this policy needs to understand the gravity of the situation and they don't even make the scale. Everyone keeps yelling for a link between 911 and Sadam, where is the link between this administration and Haliburton and the war? Dan Rather couldn't even make up a story to meet that scenario. If you think that this is as simple as a linear sequence of events, I don't believe you have a firm grasp on world politics. Do you think the oil for food scandal wasn't known long before the invasion of Iraq you are not thinking rationally but emotionally.<br /><br />Is is oil? Is it positioning? Is it leverage? Is it world politics? Is it designed to box in terrorism? Does it make some of the old powers all that much more insignificant? Is it national vengence? Is it brilliant? YES to all.

 

[rolmops]

Re: Why are we in Irak?

Pointer, I think this is one of the few times that we agree.

 

[woodrat]

Re: Why are we in Irak?

the plan for war in the middle east was drawn up and waiting in file cabinet somewhere for the political cover to make it possible. 911 was the cover. There's your connection.(doubt this? http://www.newamericancentury.org/) <br /><br />I also largely am in agreement with pointer here, in terms of the picture being much bigger than most people like to say it is. And I can give credit to the "big plan" as such as being pretty clever, but I don't think W had much to do with crafting it, and I think it is clever in a cold, brutal, paradigm shifting kind of way.<br /><br />But I don't think that invading and occupying a country full of people who hate us is going to be spreading democracy and human rights. I don't really think that democracy and human rights are big concerns of this administration (or any other administration palnning a major global power grab). the idea that the eventual outcome of this mess is going to be a stable, westernized iraq, with lots of minivans and strip malls and walmarts and "freedom" is pretty laughable.

 

[62_Kiwi]

Re: Why are we in Irak?

There are so many sound reasons for the military action in Iraq that surely the question should be - Why was it left so long before action was taken?<br /><br />In a perfect world, the U.N. would have shown a lot more leadership in sorting out Iraq and the many other nightmare hot spots that exist around the world. But as it is, the UN is a flawed organisation, requiring the USA and it's allies to do the difficult work for it.

 

[woodrat]

Re: Why are we in Irak?

so why have we never moved to enforce any of the many UN resolutions that israel has ignored? not that I don't already know the answer to this: we are only using the UN sanctions as a BS excuse for action against iraq. We don't REALLY care about UN resolutions if our allies want to blow them off.<br /><br />Which is why lots of people around the world think we are a bunch of dishonest hypocrites. Because we are.

 

[POINTER94]

Re: Why are we in Irak?

Hey it must be Christmas, Pointer-rolmops-woodrat mutually agree, at least in principal, on something. <br /><br />I have no doubt that our government is one of the most underhanded, manipulative, and immersed band of SOB's in the world today. But I believe they have to be. They have the world trying to derail or destroy us. We are the big kid on the block. It should be expected. I am with woodrat on this, I believe this little manuever was in the drawer for many years.

 

[NYMINUTE]

Re: Why are we in Irak?

If we lay back as we have for years, we will eventually be managed by the UN, and speak something other than American-English. Regretfully the scuzzball that got this started is still shooting his arab mouth off.

 

[woodrat]

Re: Why are we in Irak?

Originally posted by NYMINUTE:<br /> Regretfully the scuzzball that got this started is still shooting his arab mouth off.

that's because capturing him, according to W, is no longer a major priority. Too busy spreading stability to iraq...