Big difference, gigantic difference.

Even though the Democratic party with FDR (wwii), Truman (korea) and Wilson (wwi) have a long history of hawkishness, what is distinguishable from those wars are wars that were NOT necessary, wars of choice.

Clearly by the time both Cheney and Bush could have served, Vietnam was known as an unnecessary war of choice, there is no question about that.

For them to then be the ones to start a new war, one they knew for a fact wasnt necessary 3 weeks before invasion (see curveball), makes them the epitome of a Chickenhawk, as were loudmouths like Hannity and others.

If a Bill Clinton or Barack Obama has a track record of NOT glorifying war and NOT promoting unnecessary wars, then they enter one for any reason, they are NOT chickenhawks...and NO you dont have to have military experience to be president, but if you are a chickenhawk, stay the fuck away from my government, otherwise we get the Iraq War, make sense?

Totally!

These were the same essential reasons for the starting of the current Iraq war.

Why were Clinton's motivations somehow more pure?

How come Clinton's actions were a "necessary response"
but bushes were a "war of choice"

because Clinton did not invade and occupy!

And Clinton didn't wave a flag and say "God is on our side."

wat?

Were you asleep all through the Balkan Wars?

1912-1913?

i wasn't born, nor was Clinton

90's. [shakes head]
from my understanding the situation there was like that of Darfur.

if you still have to ask that question then you arent paying attention

first, common sense dictates based on all the info we now have, that bush cheney invaded for reasons other than wmd and used wmd as an excuse, next once it was certain their intel on wmd was wrong (curve-ball) their actions were purely of choice

this is old news and not debatable, it isnt arguable that iraq was a matter of choice that wasnt necessary and subsequent actions such as occupation, etc...

show me where Clinton's motives were to make halliburton billionaires or his oil buddies billionaires? do you still not accept that we were lied to and the reasons were nefarious?



look at the motives...follow the money

The only time Raygun was right----Grenada.

http://www.squidoo.com/Bosnia
and even so we got out quickly under Clinton.

indeed, hence we got out quickly as opposed to raiding.

Puh-leez. Bush had a huge hard-on for Iraq from day one and was willing to, and DID, use outright false intelligence, lies, and fear mongering to justify and create support for the invasion. He WANTED it BAD and wasn't going to let facts or reality deter his mission.

What?

And what was right about steamrolling a small powerless spec on the map just to reassert America's military superiority in the world?

Just as a fairly significant sidenote, Evil, the neoconservatives in Congress and in their think tank burrows were pushing HARD for Clinton to invade Iraq. They convinced a lot of people that Iraq was still dangerous.

Read the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 , including under Section 3



Still, Clinton did not attempt regime change. Regime change was not YET considered to be an appropriate policy of the United States, even though the neocons were trying their best to make us become a nation that just invades countries we don't like, kill their leaders, and convert their people (to steal from the honourable Ann Coulter). You may agree or disagree with what this Act says, but it's obvious that Clinton did not overreact or try to materially profit from the situation.

Sorry. I still dont buy that.

Overambitious, sure
Gung ho, no doubt
Exaggerated claims, yup.

doesnt mean that Bush didnt believe (as clinton did) that Iraq was a threat.

and no one died on the American side because Gen. Wesley Clark made sure of that.

typical bubble argument.

Not only did Bush KNOW Saddam was not a threat but went to exhaustive lengths to bullshit everyone into thinking he was. If the threat was so dire, ONE ounce of real evidence would have been easy to present to make his case.

Bush's claims went much further than simple "exaggerations". They were outright blatant lies. From WMD to the Mohamad Atta meeting in Prague that never happened to the "Saddam trying to obtain yellow cake uranium" that Bush officials KNEW was discredited but made it into the State of the Union address anyway, this administration was hell bent to go to war.

Given the United State's long history of such activity, I don't know why this is so difficult to accept as a possibility.

Because he didn't start that crap with Iraq, Bush Sr. did. He was left with the messy clean up and did the best he could with the FUBAR situation left to him. He instituted containment, just as we had done with the Soviets, and Saddam was well on his way into self collapse when Bush Jr had to come in and fuck things up all over again.

the evidence is overwhelming why that war was started, that you still believe a lie that most of the world knows about, is your problem, or i should say our problem if that faith of yours allows another chickenhawk to do it again

I'm just going to cut through the bullshit. You are stupid for still believing something that was debunked long ago. You are now protecting criminals by playing dumb and making excuses. You should feel ashamed and embarrassed that you still believe a pack of lies over reality. The entire world knows that the Bush Administration lied, except for the weak minded 23% who refuse to see reality. Again you should feel ashamed and embarrassed that you can be counted with the weak minded and pathological liars who lead them.

I think I was fairly clear when I stated that evidence was exaggerated.
If you would like to know what I believe (instead of putting words into my keyboard) I will tell you.

Bush wanted an excuse to attack Iraq. Maybe he thought he could save the U.S., maybe he just wanted payback form his dads war, maybe he wanted to make money for his friends. Nobody (even you posters) know what his true motives were. I personally refuse to believe that his motives were for profit for his palls when he could have made them plenty of money without starting a war with the use of his powers.

He had some (though very little) evidence supporting WMDs in Iraq. He exaggerated this evidence to make his case. He was probably hoping that troops would stumble upon something and could say "see, told ya".

We all know what happened instead. I believe I have been very consistent with the opinion that "we fucked it up, we should try to fix it and stabilize what we broke."

Its like if a doctor messed up during surgery and cut an artery. Should he should be at least allowed to stop the bleeding, or should we fire him on the spot and let the patient bleed out?

If we had not tried to fix the problem, I believe Iraq would have become a stronghold for for warlords and terrorists, and the globe would be an even more dangerous place than it is today.

But instead of the country uniting behind that goal, the democrats (and others) refused to rally behind that goal for (mostly) political reasons, and chose divisiveness. I believe insurgents used this to an advantage, and the war was prolonged and more people died as a result.

Is this a flawed or evil analysis of the situation? I don't know. I am still waiting for someone to CALMLY and THOUGHTFULLY say otherwise. I do know that calling people like me "stupid" and "weak minded" WILL CERTANTLY NOT CHANGE ANY MINDS TO FOLLOW YOUR POINT OF VIEW, ASSHOLE!

Iraq was not a threat, and we had no business in the Balkans, any more than we do in Afghanistan or Iraq.

I don't care who started either war: both were unnecessary and wrong.

Sadly, Iraq and Afghanistan were sold on a pack of lies, which keep changing over time to this day.

We DON'T have any idea why Bush himself wanted to go into Iraq, we can speculate there. But it wasn't his idea. We do know, with no question, that the people who are around him now had been planning it for years, and WHY they wanted it. They clothed it in national security needs, but it was part of their desire to protect the usa's economic interests, to create an empire. They have written about it extensively, you can read their writings. We know exactly why we went into Iraq, even if we don't know what on Earth was going on in Bush's brain.

And the Democrats didn't create the problems that led to an insurgency. How would you react if you were promised democracy after an invasion, and instead were forced to serve your invaders, all your democratically-cast votes thrown out when they didn't approve the invaders economic plans? That caused the insurgency, not a bit of squabbling in our Congress. This was an economic war.

I'm not going to call you stupid or weak minded, so don't call us assholes.

Now, Clinton's military strikes in Iraq were hindered by the Republics in office who threatened to cut funding and wanted to focus on more pressing matters, like BlowjobGate.

As for the 'we messed up, we should fix it' point of the arguement, you're right. But we knew going in that there were no WMD's and the opposing evidence was supressed. We should have pulled out before "Shock and Awe" finished.

Even after that, we should have rebuilt their economy and factories much faster, kept their army in place and just pulled out the pro-Hussein leaders. We should have had a few translators in the military on the ground rather than fire them because they were gay. We should have brought on Sociologists who would have explained what social systems that were in place and needed to say in place to keep the region stable. (Clean water, decent currency, keeping the stores from being looted)

In this case, we utterly failed in the first few days, the most crucial time to keep stability. Those living there sought out a familiar face who had the strong words, resources, and conviction to promise them safetly. The militant religious leaders that Hussein's 'Harsh Interrogation Tactics' kept in line.

Imagine a doctor who severs an artery, and watches it bleed out to time it and figure out how fast they are bleeding out. He pinches the artery, risking the loss of the limb. He continues with the surgery, considering that he'll come back to that artery and save that leg once he's done. The surgery takes longer than it should, and he reconnects the artery after it's considered safe. Blood clots are going though the limb in various areas, and now he has to go back and take care of the blood clots before the patient strokes out.

In the end, the patient does have a stroke, loses the ability of their left side, and we realize what the original surgery was for in the first place: an elective boob job. Oh, did I mention that the patient has had multiple surgeries from other doctors and was too physically unstable for someone else to come in and work on her? The surgeon forgot to check the medical history.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

The Balkans wasn't a war of choice? Are you kidding me? Even if that entire region ran red with blood the effect on the rest of the world would have been negligible. If the earth opened up under the Balkans and the entire region was swallowed up, the world would mourn for a week and then we'd get on with our lives making no changes except erasing that area from all our maps.

Even if Slobodan Milosevic took over all of Yugoslavia and killed every man, woman and child in his way what threat could he have posed to the rest of the world? None. The moment that he threatened any Western European country or Russia or Turkey he would have been steamrolled flat.

The Balkans was absolutely a war of choice. Yes there was genocide, yes there was mass murder; was it moral to intervene? absolutely! was it necessary? hardly.

Don't kid yourself, the Balkans was a war of choice. It was a better choice but still a choice and did not need to be fought.

My points from the parent thread of this one that I feel are worth stating again.

ok, you each got in a name call, first it was stupid then asshole

you are even, relax, go eat a nice meal...kiss your kids goodnight and come back tomorrow



it is true that life experiences shape what you think and believe, my life experiences have convinced me chickenhawks exist, they are new to the scene since vietnam, and having experienced their bullshit personally, I have an opinion that cant be changed

i guess we go on to the next subject...no reason for anybody to blow up over it

Sorry, been a long day. Writing papers on a saturday for a useless class made me grumpier than norm.
I need a snack, a nap, and a 24 hour Internet ban.

Have nice weekends all.