Forums
This is an index of all forums posting across the site.A little Roll call: Were you convinced by Bush Co. in ~2003?
Forums > Foreign Politics > A little Roll call: Were you convinced by Bush Co. in ~2003?
A little Roll call: Were you convinced by Bush Co. in ~2003?
Almost* every politician says that he/she** was duped by Bush Co. in the lead up to the war - at least the ones who oppose it now.
I don’t think I fell for that crap they were shoveling for a moment. The idea that Al Qaeda would have had anything to do with Sadam or the other way around is and was just about the most preposterous notion that could ever be suggested.
I’m just wondering, in all honesty, if people here were on board in the beginning, regardless of where you stand now?
I’m just wondering if it’s remotely plausible that these folks really bought the hype or if they just thought they were going along for different ride than what we’ve gotten as a result.
Thanks...
*Kucinch, Paul (both recorded by vote), Obama (by his word) were against it from the get-go.
**Clinton, Edwards, Dodd, and Biden I believe.
I didn't believe it, but I think I was overall a little more supportive then I am now. Mostly because I think the economics of the oil issue made it a viable reason to head over even if it was under the veil of a cause.
I don't think politicians then were fooled either. I just think that no one wanted to say no to anything anti-terrorism just a couple years after 9/11. Looking back on that time, it's almost understandable. What isn't, is that everyone acts like they were duped by this marvolous magician. If Bush is as dumb as most would have you believe, everyone else must be idiots for going along with him. As Obi-Wan said... "Who's the more fool, the fool, or the fool who follows him?"
I'm actually more surprised by how quickly public opinion got back to normal since a crisis like 9-11. Say what you want about the modern "always on" world, at least fads last much shorter and messages can spread quicker. The only downside is that everything is so super-chaotic. It's hard to sift through the flak.
I never fell for the Al-Qaeda/Saddam connection, but I did believe the WMD issue was important at the time. Unfortunately Saddam did a good job of convincing everyone he still had them to protect his regime and we mostly took him at face value without doing real hard intelligence work to discover the truth. On the other hand it didn't really matter because it was a red herring, war was coming no matter what and I for one was supportive of a liberation effort to foster democracy.
However, I also think the politicians were not fooled by the terrorist/Saddam connection but had to go along with the war because public opinion was on the side of the president at the time. Most of them probably thought that WMD's would be found anyhow, so there would at least be some concrete justification for them to fall back on later on.
I'm with Jason. I never was sure of an Al-Qaeda/Saddam connection, but I did firmly believe that he had nukes, or other weapons of mass destruction, and I did think that if he did, he should be removed from power because he was obviously unstable enough to kill thousands of his own countrymen with those weapons.
I now realize that we were lied to, and I am pissed!
I'm with jdubb and Jason, at least on the Al-Aqeda/Saddam connection. As far as invading and WMDs, my attitude was you break it, you buy it, and either way the world ends up hating you so how would invading make sense in the long term? I see dave's point about the oil, but don't think that, with the resources in the former Soviet Union that invasion was the right approach. I would've stuck with the more diplomatic approach and learn to respect the findings of an organization created to investigate the existence of WMDs. God forbid they're actually good at their job and right that there are not any WMDs there.
It's my opinion that a leader should do whatever they can to prevent a war. In 2003, Bush appeared to be doing everything he could to convince the public and congress of his case for war. I was completely untrusting of the president at the time.
the AQ-SH connection seemed absurd, given the history of AQ's development and SH's paranoid grip on power. WMD seemed possible, but it seemed unlikely that they would be used on the US. It's not like Iraq's self-proclaimed goal was to obliterate the US.
as for congress, i understand why skeptics would vote in favor of the war resolution. if you vote no and there were WMD plus evidence of a plan to use them against the US, you're career is over. if you vote yes and but there aren't any WMD, you can point the finger at the president and say you were just trying to protect americans.
The New GOP says:
"I saw Colin Powell as a man of integrity"
Check out the Battle Stats... I kind of look at them as a respect-o-meter as opposed to anything more specific... and there up towards the top is mr. Powell. It may have put a kink in his career but he seems to have been largely forgiven.
As for the AQ/SH relationship impossibility, I was just highlighting that because although I doubted Iraq had much capability of mounting a WMD threat after a decade of sanctions and doubted Sh was much of a threat to anyone beyond his borders, the claim that AQ and SH were somehow linked was just so preposterous that it threw everything into doubt for me.
So the other question, if Congress-folk voted to cover their asses, are you all okay with it? is it an acceptable move?
The New GOP says:
"I hate to admit I was deceived by the lies. I saw Colin Powell as a man of integrity, so when he took his case to the UN, I believed the administration."
I went to an informational meeting once on the U.S. foreign service with a former diplomat and the one thing he said that impressed me (and stopped me from taking the foreign service test) was that if you couldn't publicly support the administrations line regardless of your personal opinion, than the foreign service was not for you. It seems like that Colin Powell was working off a similar attitude.
