Originally Posted by bigc

the last 5 years have proven that assertion wrong sir

Originally Posted by bigc

1. all the intelligence agencies in the world were not telling us saddam had wmds. even our own intelligence folks had their doubts. we've gone over this time and time again, and even the bush administration's own people are now starting to admit that the intelligence was shaded.
2. common sense told me the war would not be as easy as it was being sold to the public. even GHWB knew invading iraq would not be a good idea.
3. your analogy is incorrect. a more accurate analogy would be some punk kid waving a gun across town at someone besides you. also, america is not the world's police. if so, we should have continued the fight in afghanistan and moved to head off the genocide in darfur long before it got to the point where it is today.

back to the original topic, as i've stated needless & wasteful spending should be cut. however, you can't discount the wasteful spending voted for by our politicians simply because their's wasn't the only name on it. if you're serious about objection to needless spending, you should start with the $531 billion elephant in the room rather than the $18 billion in pork doled out by congress (some of which is good, btw).

Originally Posted by bigc

1. all the intelligence agencies in the world were not telling us saddam had wmds. even our own intelligence folks had their doubts. we've gone over this time and time again, and even the bush administration's own people are now starting to admit that the intelligence was shaded.
2. common sense told me the war would not be as easy as it was being sold to the public. even GHWB knew invading iraq would not be a good idea.
3. your analogy is incorrect. a more accurate analogy would be some punk kid waving a gun across town at someone besides you. also, america is not the world's police. if so, we should have continued the fight in afghanistan and moved to head off the genocide in darfur long before it got to the point where it is today.

back to the original topic, as i've stated needless & wasteful spending should be cut. however, you can't discount the wasteful spending voted for by our politicians simply because their's wasn't the only name on it. if you're serious about objection to needless spending, you should start with the $531 billion elephant in the room rather than the $18 billion in pork doled out by congress (some of which is good, btw).

Originally Posted by UR2EZ

^ we're living it up over here, in the richest, most powerful country in the world, how selfish of you to not wanna help another country.
yeah we're building lots of schools and bridges over there, cuz they didn't have any
you libs can be such hypocrites sometimes, claiming to be humanitarian.... free Tibet, but nor Iraq right? free Darfur, but not Iraq right? why?uz GWB wants to do it, so we have to be against it
it's called Bush Derangement Syndrome

Originally Posted by UR2EZ

you point #1 - having doubts about the intelligence reports you put out, and slanting the intelligence doesn't change what the senators read.

Originally Posted by UR2EZ

#2 - the foremost political and military analysts in the WORLD agree that GHWB SHOULD have invaded Iraq fully, and disposed Saddam at that time

Originally Posted by UR2EZ

#3 - then who is the world police, the UN? that's like the mexican police!! the peacekeepers rape women in Darfur, 6 officials now indicted for oil -for-food scandal, 3 others for being on Saddams' payroll

Originally Posted by UR2EZ

as for the original topic, i'm focusing on what the individuals are wasting.... not what all members of congress voted on

Originally Posted by UR2EZ

^ we're living it up over here, in the richest, most powerful country in the world, how selfish of you to not wanna help another country.
yeah we're building lots of schools and bridges over there, cuz they didn't have any
you libs can be such hypocrites sometimes, claiming to be humanitarian.... free Tibet, but nor Iraq right? free Darfur, but not Iraq right? why?uz GWB wants to do it, so we have to be against it
it's called Bush Derangement Syndrome

Originally Posted by bigc

we elect and pay our congressman to use their own judgement to weigh the information presented to them and make the correct decision. the correct decision with regard to iraq was to not invade, but rather to allow the inspections to proceed and continue isolating saddam.


there is no world police force. leaders work within the system (UN, bilateral treaties, Nato, etc) and speak out when necessary to bring about change. although the US is a major force, we are not strong enough to solve the problems we face on our own. once you realize you can't beat the world into submission (if only GWB realized this 5 years ago) you learn to build consensus and form coalitions to isolate your enemies. it may not be the quickest solution, but its more effective in the long run.




we have limited resources and i think you have prioritize where we put our efforts. i personally believe stabilizing afghanistan, dealing with the genocide in darfur, and the myriad of humanitarian disasters in africa are far more important than 'rooting out terrorists' (who weren't there) in Iraq. as for your assertion that its simply bush bashing, i have a hard time believing any American president would get a free pass for the fiasco we've gotten ourselves into in Iraq. Indeed, when we embarked on another dubious nation-building exercise in somalia under bill clinton, it was the republicans who said we shouldn't be the world police and that we should be putting our efforts elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Jeff92se

What?

We are buiding bridges and schools over there because we blew them the freak up when we marched in there.

We just turned 1 million + Iraqi citizens into refugees because of our invasion into Iraq. Not to mention over 151,000 have died because our inability to find any WMDs

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22578010/

Iraqi Freedom is a bigger joke than the WMD excuse.

Let's put the spending into perspective. For the amount wasted on this war, we could have probably fixed our Social Security or our health care system. Now that's OUR OWN citizens were are talking about here.

Now given what you know now, which would you rather have? Help some Iraqi citizens you are forcing out of their homes because you are waging war in their hometown and killing in the hundreds of thousands OR help our OWN people?