Yes. World War II, for instance. Or more recently, I supported the War in Afghanistan, although I now think it is being mismanaged to the point where victory is close to impossible.

“The biggest mistake Bush ever made was over estimating the guts and will of people like you.”

8 years of fuck-ups, and that’s what you come up with. You truly are worthless.

“Clinton launched meaningless missle strikes to change a newscycle when he was being impeached for perjury. Liberals didn’t bat an eye. No honor, no shame.”

Amused Observer. No honesty, no brains.

Michael Moore went after Clinton for that attack, as did I. At the time, I felt the intelligence didn’t warrant that attack.

wow, you’re fucked up.

Clinton launched meaningless missle strikes to change a newscycle when he was being impeached for perjury. Liberals didn’t bat an eye. No honor, no shame.

Amazingly Obtuse launches a disingenuous propaganda catapultation to try and distort historical reality, when the Republican’ts he fellates on a daily basis were busy with their dog and pony show impeaching the last legally elected president for partisan political reasons. And he cheerfully and mindlessly spews these lies without batting an eye.

Your modern day Republican’ts, ladies and gentlemen: no honor, no shame.

-Managing to get both Germany and France to hate us? Fuckin’-A, he was a uniter!

Is there a type of LOL bigger than MEGA-LULZ? Because I’m at a loss after reading this dumbest of dumb things ever said.

Iraq? Katrina? Recession/Depression?

AO, could you remind me just WTF Clinton was trying to create a distraction from in June 1993?

First of all, wouldn’t it be nice if their involvement was actually proven beyond a shadow of a doubt? This was not the case with Iraq and the plot to assassinate Bush. Indeed, after our invasion, we seem to have found zero evidence in the Iraqi Secret Service records linking the IIS with the plot, despite the mountains of records it kept on just about every other thing it had been up to:

The review, conducted for the Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command, combed through 600,000 pages of Iraqi intelligence documents seized after the fall of Baghdad, as well as thousands of hours of audio- and videotapes of Saddam’s conversations with his ministers and top aides. The study found that the IIS kept remarkably detailed records of virtually every operation it planned, including plots to assassinate Iraqi exiles and to supply explosives and booby-trapped suitcases to Iraqi embassies. But the Pentagon researchers found no documents that referred to a plan to kill Bush. The absence was conspicuous because researchers, aware of its potential significance, were looking for such evidence. “It was surprising,” said one source familiar with the preparation of the report (who under Pentagon ground rules was not permitted to speak on the record). Given how much the Iraqis did document, “you would have thought there would have been some veiled reference to something about [the plot].”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/25/pentagon-report-shows-no-_n_93264.html

Now, I get it. Sometimes you aren’t going to get 100 percent verification of these kind of things and we have to do something if we have strong suspicions. The Clinton administration had exactly that and so launched a missile strike on an IIS building in Baghdad in 1993. But maybe the lack of clear cut evidence linking Hussein to the attempt is why Clinton launched what you call “meaningless missle strikes” instead of invading the whole fucking country.

I guess that’s a second, factor: proportionality.

We can all only imagine how you would have reacted had Clinton announced at the time that he was going to invade Iraq as a response to this alleged attempt on the life of an ex-president. Do you seriously expect me to believe that you would have rallied to Clinton’s side? I doubt it solely because you’re current statements on the issue don’t make any sense.

If invading Iraq was the only “meaningful response” to this alleged assassination attempt, then you’re essentially accusing Clinton of trying to create a media distraction by killing too few Iraqis. If there was justification in 1993 for a full scale invasion of Iraq, why didn’t Clinton just do that if he wanted push Lewinsky off the front pages? Hell, that would have pushed straight out of the news period.

Whatever you actually think about Clinton’s response, it was a retaliation for the assassination attempt. I’m sorry, but when it comes to international affairs of this sort, you don’t really get any “do-overs.”

Which brings us to the third point in my answer. You really only get to retaliate against a country for something once–even if some asshat on down the road thinks the first time wasn’t good enough.

By the time the AUMF rolled around it had been over a decade since the attempted assassination, all the suspects had been tried and sentenced and Clinton had already retaliated against Iraq. But Bush decided none of that was enough and we should retaliate again?

Of course, he actually didn’t. Because in the world of civilized nations, you don’t get to do that.

As usual, Jay Tea got his facts entirely wrong. When Jay Tea wrote above:

If we do not protect our former presidents from this kind of retaliation, every single future president will have to weigh the personal safety of himself or herself and their families every single time they make a foreign poilcy decision. It simply CAN NOT BE ALLOWED.

He seems to be operating under the assumption that the assassination attempt had, in fact, been “allowed” as if we had not yet retaliated. Of course, we had. There’s a number of other glaringly stupid ideas packed into this little sentence as well– namely Jay Tea’s confusion of the concepts “protecting against” and “retaliation for”–but I think I pointed that out above.

Getting back to the point, the AUMF does not say that the president is being given the authority to use force against Iraq in retaliation for the assassination attempt. What it actually says is that the president is being given authority to use force against iraq because Iraq “has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States,” an example of which is it’s attempted assassination of former President Bush.

Those are two really different things.

So, surprise, suprise, the AUMF does not actually say what jay tea says it says. This is so often the trouble with him whenever he does take the time to FIND and READ something. He reads it wrong.

In sort of conclusion, this whole discussion is stupid because we didn’t go to war in Iraq because Iraq tried to assassinate Bush.

Rather, Iraq’s alleged attempt to assassinate Bush was used as an example of Iraq’s willingness to attack us. A point that is directly connected to the argument that Iraq had WMD. Indeed, if Iraq didn’t have WMD, it’s desire and willingness to attack us in the past wouldn’t have meant shit if we had known how impotent it was in the present.

It’s more evidence why it doesn’t matter how many other points are listed in the AUMF. Every other point is there to support the WMD point, not as a substitute for it in case, you know, that one’s total bullshit.

And BTW, the same thing goes for the other bit of evidence in the AUMF clause I quote above which Jay Tea counts as one of his three acts of war, the Iraqis firing on US planes. Now that is, indeed, an act of war and we’ll just leave aside the idea that the only possible response to this provocation was to invade the whole fucking country, which is ridiculous.

But the attacks on US planes is, again, held out not as a direct reason for war, but rather as evidence of Iraq’s willingness to attack us.

Let’s look at that clause in its entirety:

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council

Notice the word “including”. That indicates that the two examples after it do not exhaust all the examples possible. Well, WTF were those? Were they also direct reasons for us going to war? No, of course they weren’t, they aren’t even listed. Neither is the assassination attempt or attacks on our planes reasons we went to war. These were only two, of supposedly many examples, too many to actually list, of Iraq’s willingness to attack us. It’s that willingness to attack us that justified the use of force, according the AUMF. Attack us with what, pray tell? WMDs, of course.

So anyway, WTF did you ask me, AO? Oh right. What’s wrong with retaliating against countries who are involved in plots against American presidents.

Well, AO, nothing, really. If we can prove it, the scale of the retaliation is in some way proportionate to the actual offense (attempted is still a little different than successful) and after it’s over we can you know, let it go.

But in the context of Iraq, this discussion is entirely moot. We didn’t go to war in retaliation for the assassination attempt.

Simple as that.

1812, the Civil War, WWII, Korea, Desert Storm Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Not the Revolution, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, WWI, Vietnam or Iraq.

At least for myself, it’s just that I don’t think ALL wars are justified.

Fafaroo, Just a bit curious, what pray tell is wrong with retaliating against countries who are involved in plots against American presidents?

The biggest mistake Bush ever made was over estimating the guts and will of people like you. Obama is going to be tested. Probably not as hard as Bush was but he’ll be tested. We can only hope he can do half as good a job as Bush and Cheney did on our behalf. And when that happens we will once again see the fair weather patriots approving his actions.

Clinton launched meaningless missle strikes to change a newscycle when he was being impeached for perjury. Liberals didn’t bat an eye. No honor, no shame.

So you invade another country despite George Bush Sr. never being in any real danger. But you dismiss a threat against Obama because you claim the gunman was a meth addict.

Interesting contradiction there.

So Poppy DOES have a Secret Service detail. Thanks for proving my point for me.

I’m sure there’s some fucktwit out there marking down January 20th 2023 or 2027 on his calendar as well. Of course Sean is okay with that.

I’m just sayin’.

Don’t bother. Dubya had better be cautious about vacationing overseas, for a day may come when he is dragged kicking and screaming to the Hague. Lessons learned from Pinochet.

“And that’s Freudian, correct?”

Hahaha, right you are on both counts, fafaroo.

January 20th, 2019. Mark it on your calendars, folks.

I’m just sayin’.

[Please don't joke about this, not even with freaking Bush. Thanks. -- Oliver]

And that’s Freudian, correct?

And here I had actually wasted time looking up Pavlov to make sure I had it spelled correctly. Thanks for the correction.

Together, we get a little closer to understand WTF is wrong with Jay Tea everyday.

There’s also a huge difference between protecting presidents from assassination and retaliating against countries who are involved in plots against American presidents.

(As an aside, how many times can we retaliate against a country for the same act before it becomes “extralegal retaliation” itself? Since the Clinton administration had already responded to the Bush assassination plot in 1993, doesn’t that make the invasion of Iraq double dipping?)

Back to the point, however, Jay Tea do you really think any US president as ever paused to think, “Maybe I shouldn’t do this because it might make me the target of assassination?” Are you kidding?

They became potential targets for assassination the second they decided to RUN for president. Look at Robert Kennedy. It’s a risk that comes with just seeking the effing job and continues long after they’ve left.

Hell, I’d venture to guess that by the time someone is actually sitting behind the desk, they’re as accustomed to the idea of being a potential target as they are with having orange juice for breakfast.

In other words, you’re getting completely pissy defending a point that makes no fucking sense. Typical.