In the hundreds of pages of debates on this site over the years I've never asserted that Bush lied.

I do think he surrounded himself with people who were heavily biased towards war with Saddam. I also think he surrendered too much diligence to others without showing much curiosity to their processes.

The result was pretty disturbing. While the threat of WMD were used to justify the invasion to the general public, the real motivation was liberalization of the Middle East. The facts were indeed being fit around the policy...There's enough good investigation and first hand accounts to have a very clear picture of what really happened.

Yes, Clinton and a host of other prominent Democrats were bullish on regime change in the 1990's, but stopped short of using the US Military to demand it, nor did Clinton's scope ever go beyond Saddam.

Big difference, the Iraq Liberation Act forbid the direct use of force to achieve regime change. The Act provided a few million dollars in funding to aid resistance groups.

By contrast we've spent nearly a trillion dollars on Operation Iraqi Freedom and lost around 4500 personnel to create this fledgeling democratic institution...not very "amazing" in this context. If Iraq does maintain a peaceful democracy we may well be lucky...they've got a ways to go.

-spence

Without force there would not have been regime change. Not in Iraq. Not in any other Arab country. A few million dollars in funding to aid resistance groups is a nice token to make it look like your serious about the regime change that you say is necessary, but it was only an uneffective token. The threat of Islamic terrorism had risen to demonstrably real events, and there was no real "plan" to strike at its roots. No, or "moderate," action was just encouragement for more terrorism. Massive retaliation or counter attack would, supposedly, just incite more terrorism. The roots of terrorism were planted in a religious view that the West with its democratic secular views was the Devil. Removing that root and planting a new one of, as you put it, liberization of the East needed to begin. If invading Iraq was the wrong way, history may or may not tell. The writers of history also have differing roots. As far as the cost in blood and treasure goes, there is no telling what the cost might be now and in the future if this liberalization did not begin or if we are not "lucky" enough to have it succeed.

Arguments, as ecduzitgood says, go back and forth. You are absolutely sure your argument is right. I am not sure one way or the other. So I'll defer to your view simply to defer also to ecdu's q "I believe this horse is dead now, yes?"

I think it had to be done. I don't agree with the method. Shock and Awe was just the blowing up of unoccupied government buildings. Going door-to-door clearing neighborhoods was very costly.
I think it comes down to what we can do, and what we shouldn't do. We could have bombed to a much greater extent. We elected not to, and instead engaged the enemy in such a way as to reduce civilian casualties, and then engaged in a protracted occupation which left a teetering democracy in its wake.
We could have gotten away with inflicting significantly more collateral civilian casualties and preserved our honor, rather than rely on torture. Torture inflicted upon a few is less honorable than collateral death imposed on many.
Iraq is little more than lines on a map drawn by colonial powers of the last century. The Iraqi people do not posses a national identity like the USA does. People are more aligned along tribal and religious lines. We should have let the Kurds have self-determination and their own country. If the Shia and the Sunnis can't live in peace together, then they should not live together. We should not have been so insistent on imposing a national unity that never existed of its own volition, but only under the iron rule of a dictatorship.
There had to have been a better way. Let's hope we can find it before the next occupation becomes necessary.

Torture leaving no permanent damage as in fear of dogs snarling at them, placement of panties on their heads, loud music, sleep deprivation, making them stand for long periods of time, and water boarding. All acceptable to me to me if it keeps civilians in this country safe and they don't find themselves trapped in a building getting burned from fires caused by jet fuel or having to jump to their deaths, or get crushed when the building collapses.

Wouldn't you think the victims of 9/11 would prefer water boarding compared to what they went through? Keep in mind we are talking about civilians and first responders here, they did not deserve what happen to them, thats what I consider torture not what you make reference to were we are talking about enemy combatants not civilians. To me it makes a difference when people who are not involved in the war suffer and those that are involved are supposed to be treated well, yeah that will teach them...time out.

It's solid reasoning, if it were Iraqis hijacking the airlines. The perpetrators of 9/11 were Saudi nationals.
No civilian deserves to die over the action of their state. But if you've got a four block area chock-a-block full of insurgents, is there a more casualty conducive method than going methodically, door-to-door? While leaving ample time and opportunity for escape?
Secure the perimeter and burn the hotspots to to the ground. Which in turn would make the next neighborhood less willing to harbor insurgents and more likely to inform if they were present - lest they burn next. Having U.S. servicemen going door to door and getting their as_ses shot off makes little sense. Ask the families who lost soldiers - there were twice as many of them than there was on 9/11.
When civilians equate the tolerance of insurgents with certain death from us, rather than possible death from them,then the the insurgency loses traction.

I will have to think that over only because I really would rather not burn or kill civilians. This does have some merit if it's done correctly, but it is beyond me figuring out how it should be done. I don't like the door to door method and agree that's not the way to do it, fear is necessary terror isn't.
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I'm not in favor of killing anyone unnecessarily. But what's the point of the defense budget if we put so little value on American lives that we result to something as primitive as using our soldiers as bait? Is an Iraqi life worth more than an American soldier? I don't think so.
Instructions can be given. Fifteen minutes to clear out before it becomes a free-fire zone. Cash payments for any info that leads to results. Detain anyone suspicious if they try and get through.

Just to clarify, this ties with reason I did not think Hamburg translated well to Iraq. In hamburg, pretty much all the deaths were civilians. Something like 60 or 70% were women and children, many of whom burned alive as they sank in molten blacktop as they tried to escape. It would have been much harder to defend such a campaign based on the circumstances of the invasion of Iraq. In wwii the Germans were murdering millions and actively pursuing world domination, aided by Japan. The situation was so dire that most people support the use of nuclear weapons to end the war. Iraq was a different situation, and whether or not Bush and Cheney intentionally misled, it was not anywhere near the dire situation of wwii. That said, Joe may very well be correct that a similar type of attack could have shortened the war.

You forgot the 100,000 civilian deaths.

"preserved our honor, rather than rely on torture. Torture inflicted upon a few is less honorable than collateral death imposed on many."

First of all, I was in Iraq, and I assume you were not.

Second, in what way did we "rely on torture"? Do you mean the whopping 3 terrorists who were waterboarded? Are are you referring to Abu Ghraib? If you are referring to Abu Ghraib, we were not "relying" on what went on there, those were the actions of a miniscule minority of our troops. Unfortunately, liberals with an anti-Bush agenda made it seem like that was commonplace, and some simple-minded anti-Bush fanatics boughth into it.

Third, you say torture of a few is less honorable than collateral death of many? Oh, that's precious. So if Bush carpet-bombed the whole country, the liberals would have celebrated that, by saying "well, massive carpet bombing is better than forcing prisoners to have dogs bark at them".

Some people who have absolutely no clue what they are talking about, will blindly accept any liberal criticism of George Bush. Those people are deranged with hatred for Bush, and have no grasp of reality or common sense.

Jim, my take is that Joe was not coming at this from a liberal criticism of George Bush. I think his take was actually much more typical with a conservative view of war. I could be wrong, but you might want to look back at his original point.

That would imply that ANY of them are afraid of death.

They don't live in your first world problems fast food instant gratification world that worries if Dunkin Donuts gets your coffee right.

All stupidity like that would do is solidify their hatred of our troops.

Man that's for sure, and some find it hard to understand.
Their idea of society is at the other end of the spectrum compared to ours.

I heard last week senator Whitehouse remarks about the marines pissing on these dirtbags in afghanistan he can kiss my white semper fi ass cause he has no clue what kind of band of brothers we are. If he ever spent a second on the battlefield which he didn't he would crawl up in a little ball and someone would be pissing on him!

what would whitehouse have said about the marines during WWII and some of there encounters with the japenese. Nothing ya know why cause social media wasnt around. so to all my young marines watch your six cause the enemy your fighting is not just the taliban its your own country sad but true semper fi

I didn't see this either. Agree the Band of Brothers remark was really stupid.

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