My answer to this post. Clinton was saying all kind of harsh words on Iraq, but he never ever discussed the possibility of full-scale invasion. He was bombing suspicious sites and enforced the non-fly zones – right things to do. There is a difference between words and actions. Clinton was practical politic, Bush is war criminal.
That was a politics to keep Saddam at bay and I totally support(ed) it. The Bush decision of invasion has nothing to do with WMD, with UN resolutions, even with Saddam himself – its reason is oil, and nothing but oil. And it’s a crime and shame to kill thousands of people to get control on their possessions (oil).
About Hillary. Many democrats supported the war. Some of them were brainwashed or mislead by the party of war, some of them belong to this party, and some of them also part of conspiracy. I don’t think Hillary had same level of access to intelligence as WH. Cheney and Bush had Wilson report that Iraq nuclear weapon claims are based on forged evidence in February ’02. Democrats learned that only in July ’03. I want to see either Hillary acknowledging that she was misled or better presidential candidate in ’08.
The Theroxylandr in Flame 
November 17, 2005 at 11:51 am
Now you’re just being willfully blind and partisan.
Bill Clinton’s harsh words were seen around the world as just that – words. Everyone knew that Clinton’s word meant nothing (ask his wife about his “word” to remain faithful). Noone trusted Clinton to actually do anything more than talk and because of this, his actions never did anything to retain or slow Saddam.
Saddam openly flaunted the U.N. resolutions and the trade embargos that were placed on Iraq. It is now clear that he also managed to bribe many U.N. and world government officials with “Oil for Food” money. The path followed by Clinton and the U.N. was clearly ineffective and actually encouraged Saddam to continue with his past misdeeds.
Your support of that ineffective proceedure speaks volumes.
Additionally, both Hillary and Bill openly spoke of regime change before G.W. was on scene. Once again, go to the RNC site and listen to the video. Hillary openly states that she does not believe that Saddam would ever disarm and regime change was essential (she “supported an action against Saddam”).
One last question. Did you vote for Kerry and Edwards? If so, you voted for two men who had regular access to the most detailed intelligence information that was available to the U.S. government. (Both were on the Senate Intelligence Committee).
Both men supported the war and regime change. Are you now claiming that Bush and/or the Republicans managed to “brainwash” the entire Senate Intelligence Committee?
Your arguments are becoming pathetic and have always been irrational. It is clear that you don’t care about facts or reason. Your primary concern appears to be pushing the “George Bush is a moron”, “Republicans are the party of war”, “Republicans are evil” line of garbage made popular by Michael Moore.
Arguing with a manifestly irrational person is not worth the time it takes. You and your cohorts at DKos and the Dem Underground can feel free to stew in your insane conspiracy theories. The rest of us will stay out in the light and keep the world running.
November 17, 2005 at 12:02 pm
Your logic is partially based on this false statement:
“The path followed by Clinton and the U.N. was clearly ineffective and actually encouraged Saddam to continue with his past misdeeds.”
The inspections of post-war Iraq proved that Saddam’s efforts to acquire WMD were totally pathetic, in all fronts – nuclear, bio and chemical. He had no money, no supplies, no scientists, his “secret” sites were destroyed every time he tried to use them. He accomplished nothing.
Looks like Clinton policy was “clearly effective”.
November 17, 2005 at 9:02 pm
Nice try, but not quite up to snuff.
You are trying to paste our current knowledge onto the situation that existed before the Iraq war began. Before the war began, noone believed that the embargos and sanctions had been effective.
Even if we conditionally accept your argument that they had, we would still have reason to ask why both Bill and Hillary (and Kennedy, and Edwards, and Kerry, and Byah, and Rockefellar, the entire U.N. security council, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, and many others) were talking about the threat presented by Saddam’s WMD programs? Clearly they did not believe that their policies had been all that effective.
Additionally, there is still a reasonable question as to whether Saddam’s capacity to produce WMDs was totally destroyed. First, your assertion that he had no scientists is a flat out falsehood and you know it. Second, your assertion that he had no money is equally false. Saddam was gaming the U.N. Oil for Food program masterfully and using the multi-millions he gained there to fill his own Swiss bank accounts, pay off the French and Germans and the U.N. and keep himself in gold plated palaces while his people starved. He clearly had money and lots of it. Thirdly, there is good evidence that WMDs may have been moved out of Iraq into Syria before the war (http://www.hayz.ws/blog/index.php?p=424). Fourthly, there is reason to question whether UN inspectors had unfettered access throughout Iraq. Fifthly, when they did gain access to sensitive areas, they found many examples of Iraqis actively purchasing or setting up deals to obtain banned weapons (see http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/03/sprj.irq.kay/ – can you say ampules of botulinum toxin in a key scientist’s fridge, banned warheads, attempts to purchase No Dong missiles from N. Korea). There’s no doubt that Saddam got shafted by Kim Jung Il and lost several million when they refused to sell him missiles and then stole the money. However, he was clearly trying to purchase No Dong missiles.
So, to recap, you’re wrong on both fronts. Noone thought Clinton’s policy had been effective and for very good reasons. The fact that you choose to blithely ignore those good reasons doesn’t make them any less real.
November 18, 2005 at 10:34 am
Saddam prevented the inspector’s acces for a while, and probably did some minor progress in WMD seek, though he was still a decade away from making anything interesting.
After Senate voted to approve US force against Iraq, he immediately allowed inspectors back.
The politics of air intelligence plus inspectors on site was effective for 11 years. Why suddently Bush decided that plain invasion is better than inspectors? (hint: oil)
November 18, 2005 at 11:13 am
Yeah he allowed inspectors back after shipping his WMDs to Syria and his scientists still knew how to make new WMDs. We already went over that.
Quite simply, sir this last post is perhaps the least effective argument you have come up with yet.
Why cost thousands of lives and spend multiple billions on a war to get oil when ANWR is sitting there unused? Why lose thousands of lives and spend mutiple billions when the oil sands in Alberta are there, the oil shale in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado are unused and dwarfing the Middle East’s reserves? And how about the ~350 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves (250+ years worth and the equivalent of some 900 billion barrels of oil – compared with the Saudis 270 billion). How about the offshore resources of California?
When these oil sources are all competitive with Middle East oil at around $35 per barrel and middle east oil is running at around $60 and expected to stay well over $40 for the foreseeable future, there is no economic reason to enter or continue a war like that.
If they took a minute percentage of the money that they had spent on the war in Iraq and put it into infrastructure for using those energy resources, they could have any one of those up and running and producing energy for a whole lot less.
But they haven’t. Hmmmmmm I wonder why? Do you think perhaps that there might have been another reason?
Naaaah, it’s just easier to plug your ears, close your eyes and shout, “party of war”, “party of war” or pull a Michael Moore and say “no blood for oil”.
Hint for you – don’t try to argue about things you don’t understand.
And lastly, to answer your question – Bush “suddenly” planned an invasion because of over a decade of Saddam actively refusing to comply with a string of UN Security Council resolutions and the world community’s belief that he still had and was willing to use WMDs. Read your history. (and no, Michael Moore doesn’t count as history)
Try again.
November 18, 2005 at 12:38 pm
Something else for you to chew on.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20154
November 18, 2005 at 12:52 pm
The Iraq Intelligence Inquiry Initiative:
http://philosoraptor.blogspot.com/2005/11/iraq-intelligence-inquiry-initiative-1.html
November 18, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Let’s take just one company: Exxon Mobil: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=XOM
Present market cap is $357 bil. Market cap at Jan 2003 is around $220 bil. Let assume those $137 bil of profit are around 20% of all oil-related gains. There are too many companies involved, but the estimate is good.
We have around $650 billion of profit in the pockets of Bush’ friends, oil magnates. No drilling involved, no expenses – all paid out of pocket by US taxpayers + over 20,000 dead. “Don’t take it personally, it’s just business”.
November 18, 2005 at 1:17 pm
About drilling in US and about your “Hint for you – don’t try to argue about things you don’t understand”:
http://www.trendlines.ca/economic.htm
Your “the oil shale in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado are unused and dwarfing the Middle East’s reserves” are urban legends. It’s nice to dream, but Bush and his friends are not dreamers. They prefer to kill people and get real oil.
November 18, 2005 at 3:25 pm
Two things.
One – you’re letting your lunacy show. “they prefer to kill people and get real oil”? That is insane. Did you hang wire clothes hangers and line your ceiling with tin foil before you posted that? If not, Bush and Rove are no doubt focusing their satellites on your house to read your mind by now – better get yourself covered (http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html).
Two – You’re doing it again. You take one small aspect of my response, attempt to detract from it and then pretend like you have proved your point.
You haven’t.
Even if I accept your argument that oil shales are urban legends – they aren’t. You still have not touched on the coal reserves and oil sands in Canada or oil shales in South America, oil and gas deposits all around North America.
Tell the Alberta government and its regular budget surpluses that the oil sands are an urban legend. Tell Suncor that its multi-billion dollar oil sands projects are urban legends. Tell the Dept of Energy that US coal is an urban legend – we only mine a billion tons of it a year in the US. Perhaps we just imagined that?
Again, don’t argue points you don’t understand.
November 18, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Regarding recent oil company profits, you can point the finger at the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, the Dems and a few Republicans in Congress.
They have worked together to pretty much halt exploration and development of refinery capacity. So when world markets are restricted by war, terrorist attacks, increased demand from India and China and then Katrina and Rita hit, supply went down and costs went way up.
You’re worried about Exxon making so much money while you’re paying $3 per gallon? Let them sink some of those profits into exploration and refinery construction and you’ll see your costs go down.
November 22, 2005 at 1:25 pm
Jason, I doubt that any productive discussion is possible until you acknowledge that the reason of Iraq war is directly related to its oil reserves.
Looking for anything but oil – is “lunacy”.
November 28, 2005 at 11:17 pm
Sorry man, but this is too funny. Are you seriously arguing that unless the rest of the world unconditionally accepts your premises, no productive discussion can occur?
This is a classic liberal/socialist world view.
When you can’t win an argument, you regress into “well I’m just right and you’re wrong and if you don’t agree with me, I’m taking my ball and going home” mode.
Very convincing argument technique. It ranks right up there with plugging your ears and yelling, so you can’t hear the other person’s argument.
November 29, 2005 at 4:23 pm
I’ve answered you here:
March 2, 2006 at 2:29 am
Jason is absolutely correct. To insist that this war is for oil is totally ignorant of actual facts. First of all, if we went there for oil, why in the heck do we still pay so much? Why do you also insist or assume that Iraq’s oil would make it any cheaper anyway, if we ‘stole’ it. We still have to ship it, then refine it. Your argument makes absolutely zero sense.
It doesn’t matter to me anyhow, because your Abu-Ghraib vs the Holocaust comparison says it all, about what kind of a class-lacking kook you actually are. I am truthfully shocked that people of your ideology even exist, but I’d still fight to the death to defend your freedom to say such absurdities. Meanwhile, you would demean my integrity by calling me a war criminal. That’s what kind of a person you are
Way to go ;} Fight the power, right? Do you happen to wear patchouli oil, as a substitute for soap and water? Just wondering if you physically reek as much as you do mentally. Your odoriferous muttering is abominably abhorrent.
March 2, 2006 at 9:09 am
I said not “steal” the oil, “control the posessions”. Of course Iraq is getting all the money for oil sold. But US controls the Iraqi government and makes sure that oil is pumping at maximum rate and goes into western direction, not to China, for example.
Why oil is still expensive? Because Iraq oil facilities are damaged and the output is not so big as it could be.
Without Iraq war oil would possibly reach $100. The 100,000 Iraqis gave their lives for that we enjoy our car riding. Just remember that every time you start the engine.
January 25, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Actually, historians will probably never agree why Bush decided to invade Iraq. The idea that a tiny country with an economy smaller than Belgium was any sort of threat to the greatest military power the world has ever seen is beyond ludicrous, it’s right up there with Hitler’s claim that Poland attacked Germany. As for the oil, it may have been the idea, but you can’t pump oil with cruise missiles. All in all the invasion of Iraq was one of the stupidest invasions in American history, and it’s probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better. 😦
JMO –Doug