Clinton was not liked by the military. He cut the defense budget.

And what reason do we have to impeach the President? Any military scandal? Bush Jr should be put in the same category. Please explain what is the difference, because the Presidency main concern has been security, and the last two Presidents continue many of the same policies.

(November 19, 2014 at 1:30 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: I think Heywood's reading of the Iraq war is essentially accurate. We maintained a no-fly zone over Iraq (which in international law is an act of aggression) in the years after 1991. Shooting hostilities occasionally arose in that intervening decade.

This is substantially correct. The US and coalition allies maintained NFZs over Iraq from the cessation of hostilities in Iraq through 2003 (Operations Provide Comfort, Northern Watch, and Southern Watch). Iraq frequently fired upon coalition aircraft. Despite the cease-fire agreement, a de facto state of war continued to exist between coalition forces (primarily the United States) and Iraq up until the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Likewise, nothing I've said above should be construed as support of the 2003 invasion.

ETA: The United States cited the UN Security Council Resolution 688 as justification for securing the NFZs. That claim was disputed by UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

(November 19, 2014 at 12:26 pm)Heywood Wrote: You had full scale war in 1991. You had full scale war in 2003. Between 1991 and 2003 you had a quasi war in which intermittently bombed Iraq. It was really just one big long conflict....and still is. We're 23 years into a modern Hundred Years' War.

What two others have said. Using the no-fly zones and sporadic skirmishes between the two Gulf Wars is a feeble justification for war, one which was never used in the case for war anyway.

Remember, the case for war sold to the American people was that any moment Iraq was going to build a nuclear weapon and then hand it off to Al Qaida, who they were actively allied with. "Don't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud" was just one of the lines. They knew by the intelligence that there was no cause to think Iraq was developing nuclear weapons and Saddam and Bin Laden hated each other.

Using the no-fly skirmishes as the justification is not only feeble but also a retroactively applied pretext. "Ah, yeah, that's why we did it."





The justification goal post moving game was played endlessly in the aftermath. First it was WMD and an alleged alliance with Al Qaida. Then it was to spread democracy in the Middle-East. Now it's "we were always at war with Saddam"?

"Would you believe...?"

Quote:We're 23 years into a modern Hundred Years' War.

Thanks W Bush! We wouldn't be if we'd stayed out of Iraq. Saddam, brutal as he was, was a secular dictator. I'd take him back in a cold minute if it meant getting rid of ISIS. I'm sure the Iraqis would as well.

Sandra Day O'Connor should be waking up in a cold sweat screaming and then sobbing "My God, what have I done?"

(November 19, 2014 at 4:40 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: The justification goal post moving game was played endlessly in the aftermath. First it was WMD and an alleged alliance with Al Qaida. Then it was to spread democracy in the Middle-East. Now it's "we were always at war with Saddam"?

It was a set of moving goalposts in the buildup to the war, too; it was the changing justifications which got my antennæ up about the invasion in the first place. First, they had WMDs, then they were getting yellowcake, then they were going to supply A-Q with WMDs, then they were throwing people into vats of acid.

Hussein's regime was certainly odious; and I don't doubt that some Iraqis welcomed its destruction -- that was another pre-invasion claim, you know -- but the fact is that a nation must first and foremost act in its own interests ... and like it or not, it was in our national interest to leave Hussein in power.

Bush Sr got it right: trim the canary's wings, cage it, and let it shit on its own paper.

Dubya made a strategic miscalculation unparalleled in American history. He squandered the post-911 good will we had around the world; he multiplied enemies during wartime, and divided his forces in the face of the enemy; he repeated LBJ's blunder of not financing a massive war; and he sent too few troops (200,000 counting our Allies) in to secure a nation bigger than California. Adding to that, he then disbanded Iraq's own internal security forces, including police, ensuring that even as chaos descended weapons would go underground.

Some of those objections, especially the one about scattering forces that were at the time doing a great job dismantling A-Q in Afghanistan, drove me to march against the war about a month before it kicked off.