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you just gotta wonder, had all those who "authorized" the president to invade iraq stood behind him and our troops, would those troops be home now? probally.
if all these "elected" public employee's had helped the iraqi government get organized rather than condemn them, would there be a unified iraqi congress? maybe.
pelosi said after the 2002 midterms that the party platform would be "opposition at all costs" to this administration.has that platform prolonged the war? i think so.
and although the jihadist hate bush as much as democrats, they also fear him. the same cannot be said of the jihadist view of the democrats.
prepare now.

"you just gotta wonder, had all those who "authorized" the president to invade iraq stood behind him and our troops, would those troops be home now?"

libean

I think that's an obvious no. No-one has bucked him on Afghanistan & it's a mess too.

The problem on Iraq is incompetence & dishonesty. They were dishonest from the beginning on the "evidence" of the "threat" that Saddam posed to us. They messed the occupation up about as well as could be especially early on, they used Iraq as a hammer to bludgeon anyone who opposed them dividing the country & lessening support. (Great tactic during a war). It's almost funny that you should whine & blame this problem on people that don't support the war now after how the administration has used the issue to get their people elected in '04.

Jihadists don't hate or fear Bush, they love him. He's their boy. He's their main recruiter, he's bleeding America at the tune of 3 billion a week, while tying down our military and who alienated the world when they were behind us. He's the fool that is "staying the course" long after the "course" has ceased to have a purpose. Fortunately for them there he has enough supporters to continue the bleeding of "the Great Satan". And we call them fanatics.

Bush has never made a serious effort to unify the nation on Iraq. He has never reached across the aisles. He has never made a serious effort to talk to opponents. He has never asked the American people for sacrifice.

I don't let the people who "authorized" this mess off the hook. They showed little backbone, but the period after 9/11 was an unusual time where almost everyone in the nation threw their support behind Bush & whatever he proposed and courage was in short supply. We all know a little courage and contrarianism would have gone a long way now, but that's hindsight.

BTW libean, what flavor koolaid is the White House serving this month?

Rufus; friend, you speak my mind!

Shalom

Little Bean – I agree with Rufus that you’re dreaming of you really think had "all those who ‘authorized’ the president to invade Iraq (sic) stood behind him and our troops, would those troops be home now."?

Also: Do you have something to back up "Pelosi said after the 2002 midterms that the party platform would be ‘opposition at all costs’ " ?

I see that quoted in Blogs but have not found a credible source. If you find it – make sure it specifies what the opposition was focused on, I’d really like to know. Thanks in advance.

I generally agree with the rest of Rufus, but do disagree that they "were dishonest from the beginning on the ‘evidence’ of the ‘threat’ that Saddam posed to us." … I don’t think they were dishonest, they just chose to ignore current reality, and proceeded based on 10 year old data. I can credibly demonstrate that point .. can you demonstrate any of your points?

JDR,

I'm curious as to what evidence there was that Iraq was a threat to us. Not that there was evidence that they had WMD which was a believable idea, but that they were a threat to us. Those are 2 different things (i.e. Israel has WMD but are not considered a threat). I don't recall anything that credibly came close to making that case. Saddam had a survivor mentality not a fanatics mentality. He wasn't going to attack us either directly or through surrogates.

The fact that the administration was dishonest is indisputable to me. You could tell it by the way they parsed the language "the British have learned.......", or flat out lied "we know what they have & we know where it is" or the fear tactics "we don't want the wakeup call to be a mushroom cloud". There were the aluminum tubes that they claimed were centrifuge parts that all of the experts said that they couldn't be that, the mobile bio-weapon labs that no credible expert believed. There was Cheneys "Office of Special Plans" whose sole purpose seemed to be to generate cooked evidence largely from folks like Chalabi that the professional analysts didn't trust but whose stories backed the administrations aims.

Choosing to ignore current reality as you put it and only putting forth their slanted form of reality is dishonesty. I can't see any other interpretation of this.

James,

According to Richard Clarke in "Against All Enemies" Bush knew the info was old and had been briefed on current info. Bush was not interested in any reality. His only agenda was to "Find any damn evidence" that linked 9/11 to Saddam. When told there was none, Bush instructed them to "look harder". Clarke was there, face to face with the president. You nor I were not.

It is clear to me that Bush knew he had no evidence to proceed into Iraq. But that was his agenda and he was not about to let this opportunity slip thru his hands. Therefore, his actions were based on dishonesty and manufactured evidence.

While I admire you for trying to give Bush the benefit of a doubt, it is my opinion you are deluding yourself (for whatever reason). Bush may have been nudged by Rove, Chaney and Rumsfield, however he, because of his own agenda, wanted to go into Iraq.

Others in the know have stated virtually the same as Richard Clarke (some to recant when pressure was applied). Without being there, I am betting they are telling it like it happened. You will laugh when I tell you why I am convinced Bush deliberately deceived us, aside from some pretty convincing evidence. Call it intuition, a second sense, a gut feeling, anything you like, but I know, in my heart, Bush is not innocent on this one.

He lied and manufactured evidence to set the wheels of his plan in motion. Otherwise, he would have let the inspector finish his job, the full forty-five days initially stated. After Key had not found any evidence of WMD, and Bush knew he wouldn't, Bush decided to attack. That was his plan all along. He just wanted to be perceived as "not wanting to go to war". In fact, for the longest time Bush declared it was not war.

We, as a whole nation, have been hoodwinked by this administration. Now, if we want to set this nation in the right direction, we have to "man up" and admit we were wrong to have bought into Bush's lie. Otherwise, we are only perpetrating that lie.

jdr, rufus,

before the war, there was a website, it laid out what saddam declared after gulf war 1. it laid out what the un destroyed from that point until saddam kicked out the inspectors in '98, then it showed what saddam declared in '02.
theres was a pretty significant quanity of wmd filled artillery shells unaccounted for. where are they? who knows. but juging from the pictures, i could've hauled 20 or 30 in the back of my pickup. anyways, they'll turn up. really, maybe ole saddam will have the last laugh huh?
"UNMOVIC said in a statement that an initial probe revealed that the substances had been recovered from a former Iraqi chemical weapons facility, Al Muthanna, by its inspectors in 1996."
think about how the democrats are "helping" build a new democracy. may not be like ours, a democracy none the less.
"BAGHDAD - Iraq's beleaguered prime minister lashed out Sunday at his U.S. critics, saying they don't appreciate the country's achievements and fail to understand how difficult it is to rebuild after decades of war and dictatorship."
our lovely democrat controlled congress and its 17% approval rating. like i said, the dems prolong the war. i wonder how new orleans will be doing in 3 years??
and pelosi? i've tried to find the quote. its gone missing like the wmd vials at the un story. i do have our senate intel member edwards words from '03,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3131295/
which included this statement, "So did I get misled? No. I didn’t get misled."
anyways, we will win iraq, but we will lose the war against the extremist. have a great day.

Libean,

As I said to JDR EVEN IF Saddam had WMD which honestly it looks like he didn't (beyond the stray shell or two), that's far from constituting a threat to us & if he did have significant WMD far from securing them we have released them to people much less responsible than Saddam.

I agree that the democrats are prolonging the war....

every time they vote to continue funding it.

Little Bean. Thanks for the response.

I have no argument with what Saddam declared after GULF WAR 1 ... nor with what Saddam DECLARED in '02. Remember Saddam had an ongoing battle with Iran, and if they had known the truth, there's a good chance Iran would have attacked their long-time enemy, the severely weakened Iraq.

Pelosi's quote may be missing – but have you consider it never existed? Look It Up. There’s a lot of that going around – BS.

The 1998 quotes by Cheney and Wolfy and Rummy and Kristol and Bolton and the rest are still there to be seen. Look It Up. Note your quote dates 1996 – a 7 year gap – a gap ignored – that made all the difference. No need to look that up.

I disagree with Yvonne. I think George cares about Apple Pie and Laura, but consider the man repeatedly admitted he did not read anything. Look It Up. ALL his info was from Cheney and Rove and Crony’s ... they got him elected President of the United States - why would naive George not go along with everything else? Frankly it was Katrina before the poor boy woke up at least a bit .. but he still let Rove and Karen Hughes write his scripts .. a script that never changed and was always given to hand selected friendly audiences. It was not until Bozo Kerry KICKED HIS ASS in the first 2004 debate that Bushie and Crew were faced with genuine countering opinions.

Yea Clark was there. Was he ignored? Yes. Was he part of the Cheney approved circle? No. I rest my case.

Another there was Biden. Early on, Biden was frequently called to the White House to give George advise. Cheney would sit in, in silence, until Biden said something counter to Cheney's mindset, at which point Cheney would say "That's not the way it is, Mr., President", and Biden would be shown the door. Look It Up.

There was significant planning before going into this war - including the part that said " ... understand how difficult it is to rebuild after decades of war and dictatorship" - but it was all ignored by Cheney and Company. Look it up.

Where are the weapons? A good question, but it was obvious at the time (2002) weapons weren't in Iraq - Hans was uncovering the truth – a point Crystal Clear now (2007). But did you notice how the opinion of the US people was starting to shift in the spring of 2003 as Hans was making progress? I noticed and the Bushie's did too .. and they stopped Hans and went right to war before public opinion drifted too far. Had Hans continued his searches we would not be in this pickle.

Now also I'm not supporting "our lovely democrat controlled congress" .. but I fail to see how they have or are "prolong[ing] the war". I disagree with Rufus. Yea Congress could refuse submit any budget and therefore defund the thing .. but imho that is not the correct approach.

==

One more thing - did you read the rest of Edwards' interview? "I sat in meeting after meeting after meeting where we were told about the presence of weapons of mass destruction."

Here's the point. The CIA, the Pentagon, the FBI, etc, .. all work for the White House ... and they distributed the information. The selectively distributed the information; that is pretty undeniable. They scared the be-Jesus out of us and when Hans started to show them up - they pulled the rug and said "we're going in NOW". That too is pretty undeniable.

==

I disagree with both your conclusions - we will WIN the war against the extremists .. but it's gonna get a lot uglier before we do.

You say we will win Iraq .. I wish I knew what that looked like - but mostly I wish the Pres' had looked beyond his inner circle long before the 2006 elections - You support them, fine. I hate them because they wasted a lot of American Strength and emboldened the Enemy while "Staying the Course" for POLITICAL reasons. Unforgivable.

btw, Little Bean .. in what way did "all those who 'authorized' the president to invade iraq" NOT stand "behind him and our troops?"

Sees to me he had carte blanche from 9-12-2001 until 11-2-2006 when THE PRESIDENT decided to change course.

`

We all need to face facts. Those who have died in Iraq, have died in vain, with their blood on George Bush & company's hands.

Because of the Iraq boondoggle, we are now losing our grip on the Taliban in the country that harbored the terrorists who took the American lives on September 11th, 2001.

If we began pulling our troops out today, we could have them all home in 3 to 4 months, saving billions and directing those troops to the areas of terrorist activity.

How?

Go to Iraq's neighbors and say, "You either help stabilize Iraq, or you risk us bringing "Democracy" to your country! That'll scare the Bejesus out of them, because remember what "W" says, "They hate us for our freedom"!

Look at Vietnam! If we'd pulled out when the country turned on Johnson, we could have saved 25,000 American lives--minimum. Instead, the same crowd that says we have to stay in Iraq, said Vietnam was "winnable". History has proven them to be morons at best. Sure there was bloodshed, and the communists took over South Vietnam--big friggin deal!
Don't think "Charley" followed our vets home, do you?

FEAR, FEAR, FEAR! That has been the mantra of the Bush administration. It is the ONLY thing that has allowed them to gain such power. We need to wake up and take back our government.

Send letters to your congressmen, and to Democratic leaders, asking them to cut off funding for Iraq...NOW!

`

On a similar theme al Malaki says that criticisms of his government send signals to the terrorists.

How come criticisms of his government are never seen as sending signals to him?

`

There is a ray of hope that the party of Bush will wake up and take responsibility. Amazingly, that ray of hope springs from the Larry Craig bathroom trolling incident. The party of Lincoln may finally find itself ready to jettison the "right wing" fruitcakes and go back to a more libertarian view:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20546336/site/newsweek/

We can only hope, pray, and keep our fingers crossed!

`

THE LIBERAL CANADIAN sez...
"Send letters to your congressmen, and to Democratic leaders, asking them to cut off funding for Iraq...NOW".

Kitty sez...

What happened to your 'veto proof majority' that you said was required in order for the defatocrats to end the war?

If I was yo daddy, I'd ask for a refund from WF.
:]

`

Guess you didn't read the link? Have someone do it for you, because we all know you are literacy challenged.

`

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Neo's latest re-gurgitation of Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity and the other fringe members:

"Democrats are just wanting bad news!"

I know, I know. The guy's an idiot, but let's just let him hang himself.

Using his logic, George W. Bush is the greatest thing to happen to the Democratic Party in over 60 years! God must have "sent" Bush to America so that the Democrats could win! George Bush is an instrument of God! After all, that's who Bush claims is his "higher power".

No, little neo doesn't see the irony there. He's so far up the anal orifice of the President he hasn't seen daylight in years!

~