:werd: I was just thinking that myself.

 

Modifying battlefield tactics when already engaged in conflict is not the same thing as modifying legislative policy about when to initiate said conflict. After 9/11 the change was that we need to defend our country from outside threats more than before. This administration has interpreted that need as justification for initiating preemptive strikes against enemies that pose a threat but have yet to initiate any direct contra-US action. This however is not justified, since defense is by its very nature a reactionary posture while the our current Hawkish government has decided that "the best defense is a good offense" so to speak. This is not true however, when the entity doing the defending is the US.
I've been saying "al Qaeda" for the very reason that it is a specific entity. They were the ones who carried out 9/11. Terrorists are not one entity. The fact that Saddam supported "terrorists" and not "al Qaeda" (because al Qaeda's fundamentalist Muslim beliefs put them very much at odds with Saddam's way of going about business) is exactly why we cannot use 9/11 as a justification for going into Iraq. The fact of the matter is that our government used WMD as its main reason for going into Iraq and as of yet no WMD have been found.
Bush is a Republican and this was his administration's "pet" war. Congress has a Republican majority. It would have passed even if it got down to pure party-line voting.
"My" first strike precedent is in fact not my own, but common knowledge that has conveniently been forgotten or omitted by proponents of this war due to their inability to justify it through traditional means.
With the exception of Vietnam there was huge public mobilization for every major conflict this country has been involved in during the 20th century. We didn't initially stay out of those wars because the government was looking to find some reason to unify behind in order to get the people to shut up long enough to go to war; we stayed out of those wars because our government wanted to avoid involvement in a conflict that was not necessarily our business (at least at the outset).

We knew that Iraq had the potential to initiate action against us or one of our allies. However I doubt that Saddam was holding the proverbial gun to our head. Why this administration had a huge rush to remove him from power and why it was such an urgent matter is still a mystery to me.

Dubya in keeping with current party-line rhetoric would most likely label me one of his "revisionist historians." I'm not trying to revise anything. The administration said that we were going into Iraq to get rid of their WMD. Not only did we not do that, we haven't even found the WMD months after the main conflict ended.

 

You don't know your history well at all. The public wanted to stay out of WWII because we were still reeling from the horrors of WWI. Not to mention the popular conspiracy of the day that arms makers had gotten us into WWI. It was Roosevelt who was desperately trying to find a reason to get the country into the war, like the merchant and cruise ship attacks had done in WWI. Roosevelt knew that WWII would get us out of the depression better than his lackluster socialist programs did, and he was right for once. Go read some history books, I've taken a few classes on WWII.

Public support was for the Vietnam war in the beginning. It was by a tremendous amount because of the paranoia about communism. But when the war was drawn out and especially after the Tet Offensive, it became clear that it was an unwinnable war that would only increase in intensity.

I didn't bother reading the rest of your post because of all those inaccuracies.

 

:blah:

either way it's a two sided coin that neither side will ever agree on.

and you still sound like the rosie o'donnell of HAN

 

I was in the middle a huge post when i realized it could be summed up in one sentence . The US screwed itself when it came out of it's cloak of isolationism.

 

So we should have stayed out of WWI?

 

Yeah, no reason why Kaiser Wilhelm shouldn't of taken control of France or Adolf Hitler shouldn't have destroyed Europe and the Soviet Union or Hirohito shouldn't have pillaged and raped Asia.

 

Even if we didn't go in, it probably wouldn't have affected the US as it was.

If the Germans won the first war, there wouldn't have been a Third Riech. Why do you think they came to power? Because Germany was left with a destroyed economy after the Treaty of Versailles (spelling?). WW1 didnt start as an act to conquer Europe. All the nations involved were drawn in because of alliances. Do you honestly think France, Britain, and Germany really care about the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand being assasinated by a Serbian?

This has strayed far off topic. The point of the conversation was should the asshole ... errr... excuse me, the president elect, be impeached. The bottom line, he pushed for a war which has to this day, MONTHS after we went in, has not shown a single shred of evidence to prove we had the right to go in there.

 

Well, he's doing what needs to be done, and whether you or others agree with it, it's the right thing to do. In the end, the world is a safer place without Saddam. Honestly, for the first time in years we have a President with balls to do what needs to be done despite strong but minority opposition.

 

Wow. That has nothing to do with anything. Germany wanted to conquer mainland Europe, just like Napoleon had wanted to, and were beginning to succeed until we stepped in.

My Hitler refrerence was assuming that the Allied powers had defeated the Central powers, obviously.