I try and choose my words carefully, it looks like you are still responding to what you think I must mean, rather than what I said. You say you thought I meant jr and the recent war in Iraq when I reference Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. I was in fact referencing no particular Iraq war, but the overall condition Iraq is in(as per the video and my own earlier reference to same. Maybe some room to misunderstand that, but my full quot if you can read it carefully this time:
“blaming Bush Sr. for Iraq, rather than Saddam's campaign of genocide against his own people and his conquest of Kuwait.”
I did specifically name Bush Sr, which At the least should rule out thinking I’m discussing anything done by Jr.

As for Sr’s war in Iraq, Kuwait was a province of the Iraqi state when Senior came in to liberate it. He also stopped short of removing Saddam, which was imo a mistake for Iraqi’s and the one thing I’d agree would be a fair accusation against him re the overall consition of Iraq today. It left Saddam time for another genocide against the Shia Iraqi’s that had risen up thinking Senior was serious about standing with them. Public opinion though was too much against it and so American forces stopped short of removing Saddam and followed popular opinion. Saddam’s WMD programs where dismantled(which he very much had then) and northern Iraq’s airspace remained occupied by Anerican forces right through until jr’s war. Saddam also continually decieved, obstructed and kicked out the UN inspectors in Iraq there to confirm his full and continued disarmament. Enough so that before jr’s war one of the most vocal anti-war inspectors cited Saddam’s almost certain possession and use of chemical weapons as a reason risking an invasion was too dangerous...

What I don't understand is why we are there in the first place. And I'm not being coy, I seriously don't understand. All of the reasons given so far turned out to be wrong (lies?) and if you keep going back I /think/ the original reason was something to do with Saddam not letting UN inspectors see the WMDs he turned out to not have.

We're like a cop that shoots a kid who refused to take his hands out of his pockets "just in case" only to find out he wasn't packin'.

So, either some guy swung by the neck because our intelligence failed, or the government knows something they're not telling us. Either way the whole thing stinks.

The irony of this is she's flouting her brinkmanship in the face of brinkmanship, more or less because it's a political strategic move to bring in Republican votes.

If Iran does indeed end up acquiring nuclear weapons they will never be used against a separate sovereign state, and frankly neither would Hilary ever resort to such measures either. Instead they will be used as leverage against Israel and unfriendly nearby Arab countries to satisfying Iran's needs. In fact this is almost word for word what was uncovered of Saddam's motives in his interrogation, although he had abandoned research a considerable time before the US invaded, that had indeed been his intention when he did attempt to acquire them and it was the reason he vehemently opposed UN inspectors so as to create the visage of military clout.

>> ^gorgonheap:
Hell even the French thought there was reason to invade.
...
Regardless of how you feel now about the War in Iraq. The world felt a lot different about the suggestion before it happened. The UN supported it, and most of Europe did too.


The facts disagree, on both counts. The French strongly opposed the invasion of Iraq, and the UN did not approve it. That was the reason for the whole "Coalition of the Willing".

Check:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_2003_Iraq_War

Or google the topic, there was plenty of objection to the invasion, just most of it not in our country.

To address the main topic, there haven't been any found. If they'd found some, you wouldn't have missed the news, they'd have trumpeted it for months.

Those who cling to the righteousness of the war generally stick to one of two responses, one "Saddam had 'em, but moved 'em to Syria" or "Well, he very well could have, and the *only* thing we could've done is send in 130,000 troops!"

...or let the UN inspectors continue their work, while slowly building up the pressure.

There isn't any question anymore about whether Iraq had WMD's, they did not. More to the point, there's plenty of evidence available now to see that even the CIA didn't think Iraq had WMD's at the time, but Farhad2000 covered that topic in plenty of detail.

This was imperialism, pure and simple. Bush/Cheney and the neocons thought it'd be easy to topple Saddam, replace him with a pro-America puppet democracy, slurp up their oil, and use Iraq as a sort of second Israel to influence that region of the world.

We absolutely need to stop calling this a war on Al Qaeda, it's not even a war anymore, it's an unguided, undisciplined occupation of a foreign land that doesn't even have a functioning government.

Leaving might not be the best thing, but at least we need to change what our mission is to being primarily humanitarian and diplomatic, not 100% military.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'UN Inspector, Scott Ritter, war, iran' to 'UN Inspector, Scott Ritter, war, iran, nuclear' - edited by calvados

Lets all remember who Scott Ritter is exactly, he was chief UN inspector for WMDs in Iraq, in March 2003 he said that the US case for invading Iraq based on WMD was bullshit, he was publically ridiculed and sidelined as Condi Rice declared that we shouldn't let the "smoking gun be a mushroom cloud".

And yes invading Iran would create a huge problem it would mean the US is implicit in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and undue support of Isreal in the oppression of Palestinan people. Already the invasion of two soverign states is a violation of UN charters on aggression and are considered war crimes by Nuremberg standards.

But somehow bombing civilians is far more legit then someone fighting the oppression of a imperalistic power. People should take their blinders off and realize that the War on Terror is simply the new logic of the Cold War fighting communism applied in a new context in order for the US to project power and influence, first how does on fight a tactic? Second how many states were invaded or destabalized during the 60s, 70s and 80s in the fight against the red menace (guatemala, chile, bolivia and so many others)? How many inhumane states are supported now in their regimes if they are against terrorism (egypt, jordan, uzbekistan and many others)?