Alright, my cousin may be ready accept that Iraq was a bad idea....

[Hosnon]

Help me out with some RATIONAL reasons...

Thanks DU...Love ya:)

On edit...he's a Freeper that voted for Dumbass.

[Fiona]

1. The reasons are all rational...

1) there were more al-Qaeda cells in the in the US than in Iraq, which had ZERO.

2) Saddam was no threat to the US. Ever. Over 40,000 sorties were flown over his country and not one shot down in the 10 years leading to the war.

3) Everybody admits now there were no WMD's. Yet the administration lied repeatedly about it.

4) The war on terror should be fought against terrorists, not tin-pot dictators who had nothing to do with 9/11.

5) Bush is a moron.

That last one might be somewhat subjective.

[Hosnon]

2. Ok...obviously REASONS are RATIONAL by defintion...

But I'm having trouble with him...good start though...

Thanks

[Roland99]

17. Nah, that last one just needs a little tweak:

5) * is moronically ideological

[Julius Civitatus]

20. Try this: Compare the invasion of Iraq to a lynching mob

OK, let me don my flame-resistant suit before I delve into this analogy.

:hide:

I do think the invasion of Iraq has a lot to do with that abhorrent lynch-mob mentality that was so common in America, unfortunately.

In the deep South, not that long ago, blacks knew that if anything happened to a white woman in the village, they better run fast... because all blacks in the community would be deemed guilty by association (in this case, by simply being black). Hate-filled angry rednecks would chase them and hang them to exact some primitive idea of "revenge." See where I'm going?

Bush led the nation to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 by only using innuendo and suspicion. All brown people (arabs in this case) were immediately guilty by association, and Bush had no qualms to pull out the rope. Later on we found out that Iraq didn't even have the feared WMD that Bush alleged they held. Yes, Saddam was an evil dictator (like 99% of the rulers in that region), but he did not pose a realistic threat to the USA. All the intelligence (foreign and domestic) and the verifiable evidence pointed to this, way before we invaded... yet we did invade a country that did not attack us. They estimate that over 100,000 Iraqis have been killed as a result of this invasion. That's a lot of people, and includes civilians, women and children.

To make matters even worse, we have NOW turned Iraq into a terrorist breeding ground, like Afghanistan was during the Soviet invasion.

As someone said, Bush speech was an indirect recognition that we, as a nation, have screwed the pooch in Iraq, and that now we need to franticly figure out a way to fix the mess before we leave. That's the sad and ugly reality.

Bush could have used our anger and fear after 9/11 to make us a more rational, clever, and law-abiding nation and use our heads to better fight terrorism all over the world. He could have used all the solidarity from the rest of the world to create a REAL international coalition to fight terrorism wherever it lies. Instead, lacking any good leadership skills, he appealed to our lowest instincts and led us through the path of war. He started a war against a country that did NOT attack us first, which, by the way, it's illegal.

Now we are stuck in a quagmire and the rest of the world revile us. Some leadership!

[Cha]

30. "Lynching Mob"!

That is so ACCURATE! Those words really hit it home!

Great post!

[Julius Civitatus]

33. Thank you. It came to me recently

after I watched a documentary about those horrible practices in the Deep South and the Wild West. There's something very primitive and scary about the mob mentality, and it's horrible when politicians tap into those low instincts to exact some revenge on whoever happens to cross our way.

Using our brains and keeping cool makes us greater, in every way. But we are talking Bush here...

[Cha]

36. Yeah, "we're talking bush, here"..no

chance for greatness!

Regarding the "Open Season On Liberals" on your blog and rove's remarks campaigning for the NJ repuke, doug forrester.. it made me think of their convention in NYC and how that was totally obnoxious, callous, and slanderous, too. they should have been voted down just for their convention alone. That was just a preview of the scourge to come.

[silver10]

41. kick

[wtmusic]

3. It's a war crime to attack another nation outside of self-defense

but more importantly--it's wrong to attack anyone outside of self-defense.

If he can't understand this he has the moral and ethical awareness of a first-grader, and should seek counseling.

[Hosnon]

5. True... I did the legal research for the Iraq war...but he's not a

politico so I don't know what to say:)

[wtmusic]

8. well

again, it has little to do with politics and a lot to do with basic ethics

[Hosnon]

9. Ah...but we are not an "ethical" family...quite disposed to

philosophy and ethics is one branch that leads to no answers...I'm looking for a more legal reason:)

[wtmusic]

11. If you want a legal reference on the war there is none better than this:

http://www.asil.org/taskforce/oconnell.pdf

[lady lib]

4. Try these

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3887472

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3969615

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1888437


Good Luck! :hi:

[Hosnon]

6. Thanks Lady Lib...NonGodbless you:)

[lady lib]

16. You're welcome.

Those bookmarks come in handy every so often.

[Sir Jeffrey]

35. This is a good one too...

http://cesr.org/node/view/523

Very readable for a legal document IMO

[alittlelark]

7. Just discuss the R abhorrence of 'nation-building'

'cuz that's exactly what we are 'supposedly' doing in Iraq. Ya might want to bring up the 14 PERMANENT military bases we are building in Iraq..... his brain will risk explosion.

[glarius]

10. Is he comfortable that 100,000 Iraqis have been killed in or to "free"

them? Not to mention the 1700 Americans....

[Hosnon]

12. Well, a million deaths for a good cause may be ok...as he

believes and as I do...such is life as a random Homo Sapien:)

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[leesa]

15. You've been paying attention!

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DuaneBidoux]

31. There's also a lot of (well not a lot...but several) delusional people out

there. I also understand that there is a communist conspiracy to fluoridate our water.

[Julius Civitatus]

34. "We must protect our precious bodily fluids!!"

"Do you realize, that Fluoridation, is the most mosntrously conceived, communist plot that we have ever had to face? There's studies being conducted to fluoridate milk, flour, soup, fruit juices, icecream. Ice cream, Childrens ice cream!"

I love Kubrick movies!

:hi:

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[salin]

14. Read John Dean's 'Worse than Watergate'

lays out legal reasons why how bush took us to war is grounds for impeachment.

Also lays out some scary problems related to other lies told/sold by bushco.

But from what you say it may not matter to your cousin - sounds like your cousin might like the Leo Strauss view of the world (cool to lie to the public - to get them to do what you want them to do... only a few in the know should know the truth... yada yada yada) - there are many Strauss proteges and heirs to the ideas in this administration. Read about strauss then the DSM - and it all makes perfect sense.

[gratuitous]

18. Would your cousin have supported invading Iraq if . . .

He'd known that we'd spend over $200 billion on the war, rather than having it paid for by Iraqi oil revenues, as the administration was saying before the invasion?

What if he'd been told the casualties would be numbered in the thousands, not the dozens?

What if he'd been told the conflict would go on for a decade or more, instead of six months?

What if he'd been told that the many Iraqis would violently resist a foreign invader, rather than showering those invaders with flowers and cheers?

The punch line, of course, is that all of these things and more were being shouted by millions of people demonstrating in the streets against this ill-considered bit of imperial adventurism. The sugar-coated fantasy was being peddled by the administration, which was in the best position to know that what it was saying wasn't true.

The uncomfortable conclusion, and let your cousin make up his own mind, is that the administration either knowingly misled the public about what was going to happen, or they didn't have the first clue about what they were doing and the hippies and the liberals marching in the streets knew better. I'm not sure which alternative would be less palatable to your cousin, but he's free to pick which bitter pill he has to swallow.

[berni_mccoy]

24. Here you go: THE reason for pulling out NOW!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3978218&mesg_id=3978218

[DuaneBidoux]

25. How is this for a good one:

No country in the entire history of the west or empires prior to the west has EVER succeeded in subduing this region, and many stayed for a hundred years or more.

Ask him some questions like this: suppose Bush became a very bad president (or make it easier on him: suppose the president was Clinton and he hated Clinton's guts.) But suddenly there is a bunch of Iraqis outside his door telling him they don't approve of Clinton and his weapons of mass destruction so they've decided to invade America for the purpose of regime change for a president he hates. Ask him if he would stand around or fight.

Most of the iraqi's who are dying fighting us are dying literally withing a dozen miles or less of where they were born.

[Cha]

29. I figured that before your

"edit".

Down Street Minutest/Memo..

Snip~

"The contents of the memos are shocking. The July 23, 2002 minutes detail how our government did not believe Iraq was a greater threat than other nations; how intelligence was packaged to sell the case for war to both Congress and the American public; and how the Bush Administration’s public assurances of "war as a last resort" were at odds with their privately stated intentions.

No one in the Bush or Blair administrations has denied the authenticity of any of these documents. Yet the President and those involved in building the case for war continue to simultaneously sidestep the issue while conspicuously avoiding any comment on the legitimacy of the documents."


Much More ..
http://www.downingstreetmemo.com

On Edit~This thread is bookmarked for future reference!! :patriot:

[silver10]

40. The American people were lied to about the reasons for invading Iraq

The number one reason we should never have invaded Iraq is that if you take a look at who was supporting the war, like VP Cheney, who was CEO of a major defense contractor like Halliburton, and pushed and pushed and pushed to invade the country, and who has very strong bonuses and benefits tied to the company (who never had to submit a competitive bid for the war contract, and we're a free-market capitalist country?)- and you take a look at Bush, who has very strong ties to the oil industry, family owns oil companies, and also benefits when the industry benefits - when you see these two robber barrons concocting reasons like Iraq is at fault for 911, so we must invade them - you got to ask why?, and follow the money.

Why is it not that simple?

17 of the 19 terrorists from 911 were Saudis. But of course most of the world's oil supply comes from Saudi Arabia, along with much of the U.S. execs trillion dollar salaries, bonuses, kick backs, bribes, whatever. But Saudi Arabia may not overtly support terrorists, but their country also has many Islamic sympathizers, and terrorist training camps, like Syria and probably Iran and Pakistan. So, again, why the boner for Iraq first and foremost? Maybe because they had a ruler that wasn't a Bush admin. puppet like Tony Blair? (granted Saddam was horrible). Or maybe because they have the world's second largest untapped oil reserve after Saudi Arabia?

We need to study history and human nature, psychology, and religion. look at Vietnam - we didn't win there. And we won't win in Iraq - in fact, we now made the world angry with us - and lost credibility - and have created even more terrorists who hate Americans. Many of the insurgents we are fighting in Iraq may well be terrorists, or Saddam sympathizers, and even foreign fighters trying to take control in the midst of the current power struggle and civil war. But many may well be people like you or me who would be just as afraid if we saw a brutal foreign force taking over our country, killing our innocent civilians - collateral damage (maybe even family members), and our national resources.

[lady lib]

42. Here's another good one

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3982314

[Geek_Girl]

43. Send him a link to the Downing street memos

Downing Street memo

With other news references and let him make up his own mind. I find if people can't come to a logical conclusion based on the facts then they aren't worth talking too.