What did a GWB Presidency look like?

[Zoupa]

Jesus Christ, how many times are you going to claim this? Are you the only one that forgot the whole "let's whip up the american people in this imaginary threat so that they'll support this bogus shit"

"We Don't Want The Smoking Gun To Be A Mushroom Cloud." How many times did Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld etc. use that phrase in interviews and statements?

They ALL claimed the war was about a threat to the US.

Jesus Christ, when are you just going to look at the actual evidence rather than your fevered views of "let's whip up the american people in this imaginary threat so that they'll support this bogus shit"?

The justifications claimed for the war were not that "we must attack now to stop Saddam Hussein from attacking the US," it was "we must attack now because we need to nip this WMD program in the bud before SH has the ability to threaten use of WMD if we threaten his regime." 

There is no question but what the CIA and US And UK government officials "cooked the books" with regard to the actual threat SH posed and the immediacy of the threat.  But we don't have to invent a new history to explain what the existing history explains quite well.

SH ironically doomed himself by refusing to allow the UN inspectors to verify that he had, in fact, effectively complied with the significant UN resolutions.

You keep changing the goalposts, so let me quote you verbatim:

"No one ever claimed that the war was about a threat to the US.  Not even the weak-ass Shrubbery justifications for the war claimed that."

Then refer to the article posted by CC, where Bush literally spells it out "We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America".

You can keep on claiming water isn't wet of course. That's kinda your schtick at this point.

[grumbler]

You keep changing the goalposts, so let me quote you verbatim:

"No one ever claimed that the war was about a threat to the US.  Not even the weak-ass Shrubbery justifications for the war claimed that."

Then refer to the article posted by CC, where Bush literally spells it out "We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America".

You can keep on claiming water isn't wet of course. That's kinda your schtick at this point.

The Bush quote doesn't say "the Iraqi dictator is threatening America,"  he's saying that the "the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America." 

Permit definition (relevant to the case):

provide an opportunity or scope for (something) to take place; make possible.

I interpret this to mean that Bush is saying that SH cannot be allowed to become a threat.  That's consistent with the UN declaration, the AUMF request, and public statements by UK officials.  None of them claimed that SH was yet an actual threat to the US, just that he cannot be allowed to become one.

Maybe it's a language barrier, but I don't see how you can stridently insist that I am wrong when all of the actual evidence says I am right.

But you stick to your schtick, facts be damned.

[crazy canuck]

Well if in American English the President saying that there is a threat to the US doesn't mean there is a threat to the US, I can understand why the rest of the world misunderstood that the US went to war because of the threat to the US.

[Zoupa]

Must not be permitted and cannot be allowed to become is just not the same, sorry g. You do you.

[grumbler]

Well if in American English the President saying that there is a threat to the US doesn't mean there is a threat to the US, I can understand why the rest of the world misunderstood that the US went to war because of the threat to the US.

That isn't what he said, but you know that.

I'm outta the thread.  You guys can do your revisionist history without me.

[Zoupa]

Classic 

[DGuller]

You guys can do your revisionist history without me.

Is this just a ploy for us to beg you to return, when we find out that we can't in fact do revisionist history without you?

[Berkut]

I am annoyed that I put as much thought into my response as I did and the thread just turned into an argument about word definitions. Again.

[DGuller]

I think there is a tendency to forget that human language is not a computer programming language.  It's not going to be perfectly precise for multiple reasons, so it requires a good faith effort to understand what is being meant in order for effective communication to happen.  Sometimes people are not interested in effective communication, so whipping out the dictionaries is one way to scramble it.

[The Brain]

Moving on from WMD, and regardless of a number of other things, I think that, since there was no immediate threat to the West, going to war without first working out a realistic exit strategy and plan for its implementation was madness.

[PDH]

I am annoyed that I put as much thought into my response as I did and the thread just turned into an argument about word definitions. Again.

By "annoyed" you mean what, exactly?

[HVC]

Every time I see a thread like this I think of the "little boats" saga and laugh. So thanks for that, needed it today.

[DGuller]

I am annoyed that I put as much thought into my response as I did and the thread just turned into an argument about word definitions. Again.

By "annoyed" you mean what, exactly?

Why are you asking him of all people what he meant?  Surely you don't expect him to answer you honestly what he meant?

[Eddie Teach]

I do, and don't call me Surly. 

[viper37]

You are conflating two things here.  Your thesis seems to be not that war at that particular time was inevitable but that a war with Iraq at some point was inevitable.  We will never really know the answer to that.  What we do know is that the wars Bush started never really ended.  The big lie brought us to where we are now.

I'm of the same opinion as Berkut, actually.  War with Iraq was unavoidable.  Well, ok, maybe not.  What I mean is, there would be trouble in Iraq at some point in the not so distant future, as the Arab Spring as proven, and then the rise of ISIS.  That the US would intervene in Iraq is not a certainty; it took a lot to motivate the US in striking at Serbia, and only when the crisis was so high that it could not be ignored anymore.

There's still a strong isolationist current in America.  If the modern GOP is to be believed, no one wanted to invade Iraq in 2003, except for Cheney

It might not have been ISIS.  It might have been something else.  Maybe AQ would have gained a foothold in Iraq at some point, without the need for the US to destabilize the regime.  That is an unknown.  But Saddam had no one groomed to take his place, not even his son, and he wasn't eternal, and his power was not as strong as believed.

Given that, when the shit did it the fan, it was better it did with US&allied troops in there to prevent it spreading further.  Which it did as soon as the US withdrew its troops.

The downside of course, is that Afghanistan is now an eternal war.  That's a huge price to pay.