Oh really? And what nuance would that be? We can’t be reasonably sure that Hussein has weapons of mass destruction so before we invade let’s allow the inspectors to do their work?

You mean that nuace? I don’t think that’s any kind of “after the fact” nuancing because people were saying that before the invasion. Guess who turned out to be right?

I’ll let pass the fact that you’ve been engaging in all manner of nuance, such as it is, since you started in this thread: You’ve neatly equated the belief that Hussein had WMDs with the belief that invasion was the answer to that problem; you’ve also neatly obscured the urgent rhetoric of those days — we have to act now before mushroom clouds blah blah — by suggesting that it was all about Hussein having the know how instead of the actual hardware or chemical agents poised to strike the US whether via missile or terrorist suitcase.

You guys were simply wrong on all counts. You backed an incompetent administration in a war that didn’t have to happen. Simple as that.

And there’s the irony of the century.

Weak on national security. Once again Bush put extreme partisan politics ahead of the safety of the citizens of the United States of America. Administration outrage that Iran and North Korea are trying to develop nuclear weapons kind of seems false now that we learn they are willing to post nuclear secrets online for those countries to peruse. Bravo.

Bottom line, those documents proved to be safer in Hussein’s hands than in Bush’s.

What’s the difference?

YOU WERE ONE HUNDRED FUCKING PERCENT WRONG!

Yes it was. I gave you the quotes, you’re the one trying to rewrite history to fit your worldview.

There were plenty of questions, domestically and internationally, about the extent and existence of WMDs in Iraq. There were even more questions about what to do about it.

Yes there were, on all counts. But that doesn’t change the fact that many prominent politicians and world leaders publically advanced the “Saddam has WMD’s” as a matter of course. After the fact, everyone wants to spin their statements or apply some nuance.

I remember the months and weeks leading up to the invasion spending a lot of time arguing that I wasn’t a Chamberlain-esque appeaser or part of some Blame America First Fifth Column trying to bring the country down from within.

Oh boo-hoo! And how is that different from the last 3 years of conservatives who supported the war having to listen to claims that they’re just moronic warmongering chickenhawks who eagerly support everything that Emperor Bushitler says and does in his quest for global domination, regardless of the number of troops who are maimed or killed?

The argument then was the argument we are making now. There were better options but we needed better men as our leaders to choose them and give them the time to work.

Of course, if President Gore had made the eventual decision to go into Iraq, it would have been just fine with you, right? Him being a better leader and all.

Yes, that is my response to your lame statement that “my answer is I dont know what specifically would have happene,d but we certainly had time to consider options didnt we?” My mistake was not prefacing the sentence about WMD’s with “As an example, …”, so you wouldn’t get your panties in a bunch and think I was accusing you of bringing this up.

And here’s me quoting you in response to you:
Where did I say anything of the sort? Quit projecting.

And that was my response to your ridiculous claim that I was advocating “that a poorly managed war solves all our problems.” Can you show me where I did that?

Hey! Falsely claiming that someone said something in order to support your argument is fun, isn’t it?

not only that but was insulting the people who believed it at the time.

How am I “insulting” the people who believed it at the time?

Again, you misrepresent what I say in order to win the argument you wish we were having in stead of the one which we are. Good for you. You win a toffee.

That’s hilarious, accusing me of misrepresenting what you say when it’s really you making up shit that I am supposed to have said in order to support your argument that was apparently buried somehere in a 500 word rambling diatribe that kept coming back to what I can only assume are your secret fantasies about George W. Bush’s enormous penis.

Yeah, I’m totally gonna get right on that. You can expect weekly progress reports. No seriously, I’m committed to this.

You can try, but I doubt you’ll be able to change it, I suspect it’s pathological.

No it wasn’t. You’re simply rewriting history. There were plenty of questions, domestically and internationally, about the extent and existence of WMDs in Iraq. There were even more questions about what to do about it.

It’s funny that you should talk about unfair labels.

I remember the months and weeks leading up to the invasion spending a lot of time arguing that I wasn’t a Chamberlain-esque appeaser or part of some Blame America First Fifth Column trying to bring the country down from within.

The argument then was the argument we are making now. There were better options but we needed better men as our leaders to choose them and give them the time to work.

That isn’t 20-20 hindsight. That’s what we were saying BEFORE the invasion. And we were right. And you were wrong. You’re still wrong.

Why anyone bothers to listen to you morons anymore is beyond me. You have proven yourselves incapable of sound, reasoned decision-making.

But forget all that, I have to ask, what the hell is your point anymore? Youve been talking about the inevitably of the removal of the sanctions (something you have yet to really demonstrate) and how the UN cant be trusted to keep them in line (even though, as frame basically just pointed out, they damn well were) and asking “Well what were we supposed to do? How could we have known?” acting like all other second guessing that happened at the time exists only now as that hindsight crap and pretending as though there were no alternatives to going to war, and now youre saying it was only one of the options “on the table?” You’re asking what the alternative was in order to suggest there were none, but you’re acknowledging the existence of alternatives? You’re agreeing that there were other ways around having to outright go to war over weaponry that, even by your “they probably probably would have had it eventually a ways after the sanctions ended” argument did not even exist at that time? Seriously?

And if you did have any arguments, they got lost in all the sarcasm. If you’re trying to make a point, maybe you should dial it back a little next time.
Yeah, I’m totally gonna get right on that. You can expect weekly progress reports. No seriously, I’m committed to this.

Um, what? Iraq had no WMDs and no active programs since 1991 when inspections started. What other criteria are you using to evaluate the “performance” of the inspections?

The sanctions could have been lifted but a rigorous inspection regime, tied to strict trade policies, could have prevented any new weapons development. How do I know this? Because the inspectors knew everything they needed to know about Iraq’s weapons programs and they had effectively shut them down.

Listen, knowledge is dangerous in part because you can’t make a country’s scientists “forget” what they know.

But you can control what they do with that knowledge and the fact of the matter is that inspections work and could have worked here.

The point of bringing up everything else in my post was not simply that Bush made the MIddle East more unstable.

You are suggesting, yet again, that the key reason to invade Iraq was disarmament and nuclear containment. But by any real measure our invasion of Iraq has made both problems much, much worse.

Weapons caches and ammo dumps were left unguarded and were looted in the post invasion “untidiness.” Iran and North Korea both kick started their nuclear programs AFTER our invasion, not before.

Then Bush put nuclear secrets on the web.

The point being that the policies we had in place before the invasion were accomplishing the goal you say you wanted to accomplish.

Which is no doubt why the Bush administration deliberately set out to muddy the intelligence waters with reports that in 2003 Iraq could have a bomb in a year.

Well, no it couldn’t. And now, once again, right wingers are making claims that are patently false.

As I noted above, it was very stupid to post those documents without screening the contents. If you want to assume that Bush personally put those online, then fine, Bush is an idiot. Happy?

“whatifs, speculation and straw men”? Hey, if it helps you avoid facing the issue, go ahead and grab that straw.

No, it only potentially negates the whole reason for invading Iraq: To stop nuclear proliferation. The Bush administration may have essentially accomplished what Hussein failed to do in 1o years of sanctions and inspections.

Sorry, with all the sarcasm in your post (”Why, total chaos of course, beginning with nuclear, or even worse, Nukuler holocaust across the globe a thousand times over”) it was hard to tell that you were agreeing.

Well anyway, my answer is I dont know what specifically would have happene,d but we certainly had time to consider options didnt we? The necessity of keeping Iraq from building a nuclear arsenal would have compelled us to do something to keep them from ever becoming a threat. More sanctions, frequent inspections, restrictions on certain materials, a whole bunch of things that are practical in that situation that would have had the desired effect of keeping Hussein from building a nuclear program that poses any kind of threat.

Hindsight is always 20-20. Now that we know there are no WMD programs in Iraq, it’s real easy to look back and say that anyone who ever thought there were WMDs in Iraq was a warmongering idiot. Remember, it was the conventional wisdom at the time. Just ask some of our most prominent Democrats.

And as I noted above, I don’t have a lot of faith in UN-based inspections and sanctions, based on their past perfomance.

In my snark filled post however, I was fundamentally exploring your premise, which is, and I seriously dont think I’m misstating it in the least but am open to your comment, that Poetntially the sanctions would be lifted, which means potentially Saddam cound get the materials and potentially get trhe resources to potentially build a nuke he could potentially threaten us with, so we had no choice at all but to wage war.

Everything but the “so we had no choice at all but to wage war” part. Where did I say or advocate this? In my opinion, taking Saddam out via invasion was only one of the options on the table. However, based on past UN and IAEA performance, I think invasion had a better chance for success than indefinite sanctions and the IAEA playing “whack-a-mole” with Saddam.

See, I wasn’t avoiding the question, I was trying to underscore how many alternative answers there are to it instead of the one you seem to be stuck on, which is that a poorly managed war solves all our problems.

Where did I say anything of the sort? Quit projecting. And if you did have any arguments, they got lost in all the sarcasm. If you’re trying to make a point, maybe you should dial it back a little next time.

I cant believe that you’re actually dense enough that you didnt notice that, which means you are intentionally misrepresenting what I say just to make yourself feel better about having a fundamentally indefensible position.

So you’re saying the burden’s on me to wade through your over the top, sarcastic post and pick out your actual argument? Now who’s trying to make themselves feel better?

Eat dick.

When you feel like you’re losing an argument, fall back on insults. Got it.

It’s really a pretty straight-forward question, and if you ever manage to advance your thought process beyond “George Bush is a freaking moron and everything he touches turns to crap, why can’t all you idiot conservative Bush-lovers see it?”, you might try to honestly answer it.

Why, total chaos of course, beginning with nuclear, or even worse, Nukuler holocaust across the globe a thousand times over. Why the lifting of the sanctions (which was totally going to happen anyway, I mean the french were behind it and nothing can possibly stop those juggernauts of influence) in the nearing future meant that we had to act. Now sure, some faggoty limpwristed namby-pamby trans-gendered liberal-communists would say that surely there has to be a way to keep Iraq from building a Nukuler even still, whether by keeping a much closer eye on him with mandatory inspections or by some other diplomatic means that satisfy the most people, but these people are ignoring a simple basic fact. That we had to go to war. It was our obligation to. George W Bush and his enormous penis (much larger than any mortal man’s) commanded it to be so, so therefore it must have been the right decision, and all those dead and dying Iraqi’s and the families of soldiers who were lied to about how their son was killed couldnt possibly be happier about that, I’m sure. Dont you see you foolish foolish libruls? It was inevitable, and we were unable to stop the potential action that would cause the potential action that would cause the potential of Hussein eventually, one day, having and using nuclear weaponry. And we, the big, mighty, powerful, wise and just United States of America And Also George Bush’s Enormous Penis had no other way to stop him except by getting into a war we have no way to get out of in which more and more civilians and soldiers are dying with no possible end in sight, in order to keep something bad from possibly happening. Possibly. Duh!

I agree that posting those nuclear documents online without any screening of the content was a very stupid thing to do. But that doesn’t negate what those documents tell us.

Your response to my post was to state that:

1. Bush was an idiot for posting these documents

2. Invading Iraq only made the ME more unstable, by pissing off all the neighbors and telling Iran and North Korea to “hurry up and get nukes before we invade you too”

3. If invading Iraq was the correct move, why aren’t we invading North Korea too?

4. Bush is, again, an idiot for wanting to disarm Iraq of its mythical WMD’s

You did everything BUT address the issue. I think you have a circular logic problem of your own. All of your arguments seem to come back to “Bush is an idiot” or “Everything Bush does is either stupid or the wrong move”.

How about you address the actual argument? Here are the simple facts in the matter:

1. These new documents show that Saddam had the knowledge (back in 1991) needed to build nukes.

2. Saddam was unable to proceed any further with his nuclear program due to the sanctions put in place post-Gulf War.

3. Once the sanctions were removed, Saddam would be free to aquire the tooling and materials need to restart his nuclear program.

4. After 10+ years of sanctions, support for them was waning (thanks to vigorous lobbying efforts by the French and Russians, who were lining up to become Saddam’s Number 1 trade partners).

It’s not difficult to see that Saddam aquiring nuclear weapons was inevitable. It was a matter of when, not if. Sorry, I don’t have as much faith in a “rigorous inspection regime with the threat of sanctions or targeted retaliation” as you do. Remember IAEA inspectors cooling their heels out front of suspected sites while covered trucks sped off out the back gate? And the threat of sanctions? Please. Once they’re off, good luck getting them reinstated. As soon as the French and Russians (and others) start trading in earnest with Saddam, what makes you think they are going to willingly support a UN effort to suspend that trade? How much did Chiraq fight us on giving Saddam an ultimatum to give inspectors totally free access or face invasion?

Drone, I don’t know if liberals are your intellectual betters, but you and dugger are prime examples of some serious poor, dumb conservatives.

Sorry, that was a rhetorical question. They’re not.

You must have a reading comprehension problem. Where exactly did I write this? I only talked about what would happen when the sanctions were lifted.

Good you finally admitted it, though it’s bad it cost 650,000 lives for you to get an education.

I think The Lancet’s current figures are that the loss of life in Iraq is now over 100 Million Billion.

(BTW there was no evidence that he was pursuing a program post 1991)

You’re right, the sanctions saw to that. My question to you is, what would happen as soon as the sanctions were lifted?

Schwarz is awafully quick with the name calling to have screwed up the basics himself. I bet OW regrets referring to this article now.