Considering how much the right now loves Bill Clinton, they should be applauding this, right? Riiiight.
Clinton says invading Iraq was a “big mistake”
The United States made a “big mistake” when it invaded Iraq, former President Bill Clinton said Wednesday, citing the lack of planning for what would happen after dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown.
“Saddam is gone. It’s a good thing, but I don’t agree with what was done,” Clinton told students at the American University of Dubai. “It was a big mistake. The American government made several errors … one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country.”
>> Why Bush s Case On Iraq Was Different From Clinton s
Have you heard Bush lying about torture lately? He’s pathological, Tuco. Once he’s made up his mind about the rightness of a policy, he’ll say whatever it takes. Luckily, the majority of Americans see it clearly for what it is: arrogance. Michael Moore was right, and Tuco was wrong.
Clinton is criticising the way in which the war was handled, which he has done consistently. His views are not different from a 2004 interview in which he stated:
Yes, and notice what he didn’t say. He didn’t say that George Bush lied, and he didn’t say that George Bush deceived the nation into going to war. He did not take back what he said about his belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction up until the point that he was overthrown.
If only more Democrats would follow his lead on the level of discourse about the war.
Clinton is not exactly a disinterested party either. He’s a strong partisan and a man trying to salvage a legacy damaged by impeachment. Why should anyone attribute any spcial consideration to his words? And also note that the way it is explained, he evidently is not saying invading Iraq per se was wrong, just wrong without adequate post war planning. After all, the man who said this “The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow.” who himself has deployed troops in harms way, could hardly object to someone else taking forcefula ction against Saddam. No, there’s nothing hre to comfort the anti-war left.
Dugger
JWG, the United States has been in a state of war with one nation or another since World War II. In comparison with the last five years, the years from 1992 to 2000 were peaceful. In any event, why not ask some of your friends who aren’t wingnuts (or even the more honest wingnuts, I’m sure some exist) whether they would describe the Clinton years as 8 years of peace and prosperity. Can you honestly tell us they would disagree?
Boy, I miss me some Clinton. As he’s grown in stature around the world since leaving the Office, it reminds us everyday of the man-child we currently have in there.
Eight years of peace, prosperity and blowjobs; I think it’s fair to say Clinton will be remembered as one of the greatest leaders we’ve had.
I believe the question, Tuco, is why does it apparently mean so much to your self-esteem to be so consistently wrong. You have to try to be wrong to be wrong as often as you’re wrong. You’re a one-man wrong-a-thon. If negative reinforcement is your thing, go ahead, knock yourself out.
Were you asleep for 8 years?
You can tell that to the Americans who were wounded or killed due to foreign attacks during those 8 years. Good luck with that.
You may also want to tell that to the people who were wounded or killed due to American attacks during those 8 years.
But if you felt at peace during the Clinton years, then you may want to bottle up that formula and sell it.
The next thing that’ll happen is that they’ll claim to be able divine Clinton’s thoughts and tell us that he can’t call Bush a liar–even though he really, really, really believes it–because he’s an ex-President and has to maintain some decorum.
If it obviously means so much to your self-esteem to tell me–a person you don’t even know–that I’m wrong, go ahead, knock yourself out.
By the way, who conducted the poll that revealed that the majority of Americans think that the President is arrogant?
Has Clinton accused Bush of lying?
If yes, then Tuco is wrong and TomY’s comment is relevant.
If no, then Tuco is correct and TomY’s comment is irrelevant to the topic.
Which is it?
Damn, you guys are real touchy these days. Feel the heat much?
Just keepin’ it real.
Correct…we were engaged in combat repeatedly during the Clinton years in which Americans and others died. If you want to describe that as being at peace, so be it.
I’m glad we all agree that Bush is lying to us about his torture policy. And I’m glad 57% of my countrymen agree that Bush willfully deceived us by hyping Saddam’s nonexistent nuclear program and non-existent ties to al-Qaeda while suppressing any contradictory evidence. And for pointing this out, we get called unpatriotic, pro-Saddam, Bin Laden sympathizers, and accused of wanting to give therapy to terrorists. Your repulsive, immoral moment is coming to an end, Republicans.
I suppose I have to keep bringing this up from the Senate Intelligence Report:
and
So no, we don’t agree. Contradictory evidence was supplied in the NIE and there were ties to al-Qaida.
>>Why should anyone attribute any spcial consideration to his words?
Because he held the Office of the Presidency, and also made decisions that put U.S. trooops in harms waw?
You friggin nitwit, Dugger. Go buy some more talking points.
JK
JWG, I must apologize, but I do not understand the point you’re trying to make.
I understand the GOP narrative that we have been at war with Islamo-whatsit-thingie since Jefferson and the Barbary pirates, but are you saying that because people died in America and Americans died abroad from the years 1992 to 2000, we were not, in fact, at peace?
You sound like our current President, as quoted in the the Onion (which means it’s real): “”My fellow Americans,” Bush said, “at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us.”
I think you’ve got that backwards. You seem to get very touchy when your cherished tropes–not much more than slogans, actually–are challenged with, you know, actual evidence.
damn it! AT war….at war with Eurasia!
Btw, JWG…We have always been as war with Eurasia!
JWG,
How come you didn’t vote of Kerry if you love nuance so very much?
If you want to describe that as being at peace, so be it.
Fine. EXTREMELY MORE PEACEFUL? How’s that?
Big Gay Al –
It’s Islamofishes. We’re fighting the Islamofishes.
We agree that Bush is lying when he says we don’t torture prisoners, at least.
The full NIE, the White Paper, or the redacted NIE? And an al Qaeda agent being “present in Baghdad” is not the same thing as having ties to Saddam. That was a claim the administration knew was probably false, and yet made repeatedly in order to sell their idiotic war.
Here’s Josh Marshall’s catalogue of Cheney’s scare tactics regarding Saddam/9-11 ties.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007026.php
Here’s Kevin Drum’s list of five claims the administration made before the war, the evidence contradicting which the administration kept classified until after the war.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007556.php
I think we can find some agreement there.
Who did I vote for?
“You friggin nitwit, Dugger. Go buy some more talking points. ”
JK, Surprised your mommy let you at the keyboard again. I thought you were on a cyber time-out because from the last time you got nasty nad had to be spanked by the adults. Pay attention! If being president alone is an overriding qualification for judging the intelligence and wisdom of presidential decisions, then it should be obvious to even immature vulgarians that that presdient who has more data and a full staff of advisors would be the much, much better judge than the ex president out of the loop.
Now, clean the Spaghetti-Os off the keyboard, wipe the foam from your lips and go back to your etch-a-sketch. And if you want to impress big people, try thought instead of profanity.
Dugger
Here’s the thing, JWG. I was in favor of the war because I was actually worried about getting dirty bombed or nuked. Sure, the evidence looked thin, and I kinda doubted whether old secular Saddam really had common cause with the jihadists. But I guessed it was a possibility, and I figured that no president, Republican or Democrat, would take us to war over a WMD threat if that threat weren’t real, so I trusted Bush (I always kinda liked him, especially after 9-11, to be honest.) But the longer we went without finding anything, especially al Qaeda ties or evidence of a nuclear program, the more I realized that these guys really did go to war for different reasons: primarily as a way of flipping the tables in the middle east and starting the region down a democratic path. Now that’s laudable enough in theory, and it’s fine for some people but it’s not what I was sold on, and it’s not what anyone I know was sold on. The country was sold on the fear of an attack, not the hope of changing the middle east.
Now that things have gone bad, the country’s made a retrospective decision to say, hey, the president deceived us. Obviously the broad middle of the country wouldn’t feel that way if the war were going well. But the fact remains that the administration approached the war like they approach every other issue from social security to the medicare bill: as a problem with a neat ideological answer backed by a gigantic marketing machine. Then, as with 9-11, they used it as a political weapon to beat up Democrats. So the man gets no presumption of somehow being above exaggeration, distortion, crimes of omission, or flat lying in making his case, since he’s already tarnished the holy purity of his war by the political marketing process he put it through. And frankly, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t agree that he’s at least capable of deceit (or at least, willfull ignorance), given that you think he’s lying about torture (I’ll admit he could be willfully ignorant in this case as well, not that it would excuse him).
Because in the case of WMD, he repeated the same information that had been passed along from the intelligence community since the 90’s. The Senate Intelligence Report confirmed that the intelligence community blew it big time. The (correct) dissenting opinions were presented along with the (incorrect) claims about WMD, but they were overwhelmed by the supportive information. Many non-WMD claims were found to be reasonable, but the WMD claims were colored by the presumption that Iraq maintained their previously declared stocks.
A reminder of what Clinton said:
Yes, I get it, Dugger.
The regular Bloggers in this forum, most notably you, have “credibility” when talking about the committment of U.S. troops in combat.
However, the former Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, does not, because he was on the recieving end of a blow job in the Oval Office.
You remain dumb. Do you think you’re playing with the big boys, Dugger?
What you do, Dugger, is “mental masturbation.” Nothing more.
JK
P.S.
1.) My mom is no longer living.
2.) If I was “spanked,” I must have missed it.
>>If being president alone is an overriding qualification for judging the intelligence and wisdom of presidential decisions, then it should be obvious to even immature vulgarians that that presdient who has more data and a full staff of advisors would be the much, much better judge than the ex president out of the loop
Note to Dugger: only 43 people in the history of the United States have held the Office of the Presidency. At any given time, we’re lucky if FIVE of them are alive.
Given the extraordinary complexities, and enourmous responibilities of holding that position, we’d better pay attention to the wisdom they have to offer us, regardless of their political affiliation, and not be so casual to dismiss them because of their personal weaknesses.
Or is that you some of us don’t want to learn from other people’s valuable experiences, insight, or God forbid, their mistakes?
If you don’t like Clinton, then just say it, you lightweight.
Sometimes, a duck, is just a duck.
Sometimes, a hack, is just a hack.
JK
JK,
And sometimes a foul mouthed poster will use profanity and name calling when he/she is too immature to debate. Is that you JK? Look up the definition of lying and tell me how you know the president is lying. And you have yet to dig yourself out of this hole: if presidents have special unique abilities to judge, who better to judge: ex president out of the loop with no staff or current presdient in the loop surrounded by experts. Seems then we would have to go with Pres Bush over Pres Clinton. How bout it? Got an answer for that or do we get more childish profanity?
And BTW, I have some respect for Clinton, but I can recognize he is also a strong partisan, has been moreso lately and, like Carter, is somewhat bitter over his own failings.
Dugger
Dugger. Debate with you?
I could care less about you. You, and your words mean nothing to me. They never have.
In responding to your lengthy, mental masturbatory posts, my intention is that whatever I write might reach someone who is willing to listen.
JK
JK
Righhhttt. We’ll just expect the nasty mouth next time intellect is called for.
Dugger