Misguided President

Sonething's the wrong way round here

Published on June 7, 2005 By The Original Vune In International

Why does George W. spend billions of dollars on invading, and maintaining an occupation, of Iraq under false pretences but then refuses the plans for debt relief and fair trade in Africa because it doesn't fit in with his budget plan?

I do not understand this man and the team of people he surrounds himself with!

Comments (Page 1)

The Original Vune

on Jun 07, 2005

drmiler

on Jun 07, 2005

Misguided President

Somethings the wrong way round here

By: The Original Vune
Posted: 6/7/2005 8:44:59 AM on JoeUser.com
Why does George W. spend billions of dollars on invading, and maintaining an occupation, of Iraq under false pretenses but then refuses the plans for debt relief and fair trade in Africa because it doesn't fit in with his budget plan?

I do not understand this man and the team of people he surrounds himself with!

And on the other hand "we" don't understand people like you either. And just an aside.... show me that it was "false pretenses".

latour999

on Jun 07, 2005

And just an aside.... show me that it was "false pretenses".

Show me the WMDs

Justice For Jews

on Jun 07, 2005

SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!

DiseasedHumanity

on Jun 07, 2005

Yes, the false pretenses would most likely be all the WMD's that were supposed to be there, but in fact were something along the lines of plans for the construction of WMD's or something equally vague. Which ,needless to say, is hardly terrifying.

The Original Vune- I agree completely. There are so many places that we need to be at right now- and could be at right now if we hadn't invcaded in the first place- that need our help more.

However, we're stuck there now and there's nothing we can do about it. if we leave, it'll throw Iraq into even more of a confusion than it already is.My general opinion is that we need to get the election done at the very least, leave some people there to help make sure the president knows what he's doing, and then devot the majority of our time to slightly more worthwhile causes. Sudan, anyone?

Oh wait, Sudan doesn't have any oil. Excuse me.

Cheers, Pads

Gideon MacLeish

on Jun 07, 2005

Debt relief will not solve the problems in Africa. Do you truly feel that the racist policies of many African countries (against whites, as a rule) should be upheld and endorsed by this administration, or that the oppression of political dissidents should be financially underwritten?

I issued a challenge some time ago. My challenge was (and is) this: If liberals will start a charity focused on raising PRIVATE FUNDS towards the payment of debt of impoverished nations CONDITIONAL ON human rights standards compliance and equitable distribution of aid and allocating no more than 10% of their resources to administration, I have a $10 donation awaiting them, with more to come, and will use both of my blog sites to promote their efforts.

To date, noone has come forth. This tells me that these activists don't care about solving the problems in these nations, they only care about attacking our president on every front.

drmiler

on Jun 07, 2005

#3 by latour999
Tuesday, June 07, 2005

And just an aside.... show me that it was "false pretenses".

Show me the WMDs

Try this on for size and show me just where they're talking about WMD's? And this is from MSN.

From: Jacob Weisberg
To: Paul Berman, Thomas Friedman, Christopher Hitchens, Fred Kaplan, George Packer, Kenneth M. Pollack, and Fareed Zakaria
Subject: Should We Have Backed This Invasion?
Monday, Jan. 12, 2004, at 8:12 AM PT
Gentlemen,

Thanks for agreeing to participate in this Slate dialogue. I've invited you because you're fellow members of what Bill Keller, the editor of the New York Times, once termed the "I-Can't-Believe-I'm-a-Hawk Club." With the arguable exceptions of Fareed and Christopher, you're liberals by background and inclination. Yet you decided to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq despite a range of objections to the Bush's administration's foreign policy. Ten months on I thought that, like me, you might be having some second thoughts about that decision. The question I'd like to raise with all of you this week is a straightforward one: With the benefit of hindsight, do you still believe that the United States should have invaded Iraq in March 2003?

Let me kick things off by volunteering some of my own qualms. I had been in favor of deposing Saddam Hussein since the premature end of the first Gulf War in 1991 for two primary reasons, which I explained in an earlier Slate dialogue. The first was humanitarian: Saddam was (is) a genocidal butcher on an epic scale, and I wanted to see Iraq freed from his grip. The second was Saddam's seemingly incorrigible pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons. March 2003 was not the time of my choosing—I would have gone in back in 1993 (when Saddam tried to assassinate former President Bush), or in 1998 (when he slammed the door on the U.N. inspectors*), or waited for a genuine emergency and a more propitious moment to reassemble an international coalition. But when George W. Bush chose to finally act, I supported him despite serious reservations about timing and method because I wanted the job finished at last.

Continue Article

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To me, the liberation of 25 million Iraqis remains sufficient justification, which is why I don't think the failure to find weapons of mass destruction by itself invalidates the case for war (though it certainly weakens it). What does affect my view is the huge and growing cost of the invasion and occupation: in American lives (we're about to hit 500 dead and several thousand more have been injured); in money (more than $160 billion in borrowed funds); and in terms of lost opportunity (we might have found Osama Bin Laden by now if we'd committed some of those resources to Afghanistan). Most significant are the least tangible costs: increased hatred for the United States, which both fosters future terrorism and undermines the international support we will need to fight terrorism effectively for many years to come. Of course, the fall of Saddam has made us safer and is likely to produce all sorts of positive side effects, such as Qaddafi's capitulation. But the diminution of America's ability to create consensus around actions necessary for collective security makes us less safe. So, while I still think the Iraq war was morally justified, I'm not at all sure it was worth the costs.

Many of those costs—human, financial, and diplomatic—could have been reduced substantially if President Bush hadn't gratuitously alienated so many potential allies, and sympathizers, and if arrogance and ideology hadn't prevented his Pentagon team from properly planning for the occupation. But as a supporter of the war, I can't get myself off the hook by saying Bush has screwed things up, because he has screwed things up in ways that were evident in advance of the invasion. This was elective surgery, and we had a pretty good idea what the surgeon's limitations were. The choice wasn't between an invasion led by George W. Bush and an invasion led by a president who would make an eloquent case to the world and build a credible global coalition. The alternatives were Bush's flawed war or no war. So, the question I'm asking myself now is whether the marvelous accomplishment of deposing and capturing Saddam justifies costs that I really ought to have expected.

Because I'm doubling as moderator (and because, frankly, I haven't completely made up my mind), I'm going to refrain from answering for the moment. My hope is that by the end of the week, the rest of you will have helped me reach a conclusion.

Let's start off with a question for Kenneth Pollack. Ken, in your excellent piece in the new issue of the Atlantic, you conclude that our discovery that Iraq did not in fact have active WMD capabilities makes the case for invading "considerably weaker" than you believed when you argued it in your book The Threatening Storm. I agree! But does it weaken it to the point that you now think, with the benefit of hindsight, we should not have gone to war?

I'd like Thomas Friedman to respond first to Ken. After that, it's open season.

Salutations,
Jacob

drmiler

on Jun 07, 2005

The Original Vune- I agree completely. There are so many places that we need to be at right now- and could be at right now if we hadn't invcaded in the first place- that need our help more.

However, we're stuck there now and there's nothing we can do about it. if we leave, it'll throw Iraq into even more of a confusion than it already is.My general opinion is that we need to get the election done at the very least, leave some people there to help make sure the president knows what he's doing, and then devot the majority of our time to slightly more worthwhile causes. Sudan, anyone?

Oh wait, Sudan doesn't have any oil. Excuse me.

Cheers, Pads

Oh, Get off it! This war was NOT about oil! It never was and never will be! At best it's a tired old arguement that has been shown to be a false assumption many times over! If it had been about oil do you not think we'd have a lot more gasoline by now? And prices would be "down" wouldn't they?

The Original Vune

on Jun 08, 2005

Oh, Get off it! This war was NOT about oil!

This forum was never about the rights and wrongs of the war!

The Original Vune

on Jun 08, 2005

I agree it is not a simple case and that the relief of debt will not solve the problems on its own. There are problems with corruption right through Africa's political landscape but you can't get away from the fact that people on the ground are living in terrible poverty, dying of diseases that are easily treatable, lack education about AIDS and other important issues that impact their lives greatly.

the racist policies of many African countries (against whites, as a rule)

Apart from Zimbabwe (which is a special case) what the heck are you talking about here!?

The Original Vune

on Jun 08, 2005

This tells me that these activists don't care about solving the problems in these nations, they only care about attacking our president on every front.

And I'm not just out to attack the president (your president, as I am not American) I was just baffled by the choices that the most powerful country in the world makes sometimes, their seeming lack of good foreign policy and their lack of consideration for the global community when it doesn't involve old enemies of their dad's

drmiler

on Jun 08, 2005

#9 by The Original Vune
Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Oh, Get off it! This war was NOT about oil!

This forum was never about the rights and wrongs of the war!

Deseased Humanity is the one that made it about the war with this comment.

The Original Vune- I agree completely. There are so many places that we need to be at right now- and could be at right now if we hadn't invcaded in the first place- that need our help more.

However, we're stuck there now and there's nothing we can do about it. if we leave, it'll throw Iraq into even more of a confusion than it already is.My general opinion is that we need to get the election done at the very least, leave some people there to help make sure the president knows what he's doing, and then devote the majority of our time to slightly more worthwhile causes. Sudan, anyone?

Oh wait, Sudan doesn't have any oil. Excuse me.

Cheers, Pads

Island Dog

on Jun 08, 2005

Oh wait, Sudan doesn't have any oil. Excuse me.

Sudan does have oil. Do you even take the time to research your accusations?

The Original Vune

on Jun 08, 2005

Deseased Humanity is the one that made it about the war with this comment

I wasn't blaming anyone, just making a point about not wanting to get into another discussion about the rights and wrongs of why the Iraq war came about, just contrasting a couple of issues that seem bizarre to me

The Original Vune

on Jun 08, 2005

At best it's a tired old arguement that has been shown to be a false assumption many times over!

Were you talking about oil here, or the presence of WMDs, or the immediate threat posed by Iraq, or maybe the links between Saddam and Al Quaeda?

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