In her diatribe against Jeb Bush, Laura Ingraham continued on as if the assumption, solidified by media propaganda, were "fact." I mean, if the news people said that there were "no" WMD in Iraq, who in their "right" mind would have invaded in the first place?
I'm sorry, the Iraqi security personnel that suffered IED burns, on their skin, would disagree. The burn on their skin represent the aftermath of a blister agent laced IED. Blister agents are examples of WMD. This speaks volumes of the fact that WMD was in Iraq as President Bush argued.
Why can't we? Because most of the media claims that there were "no" WMD in Iraq... despite the fact that the WMD kept turning up throughout the Iraq War?
I understand that Laura Ingraham was busy hammering Jeb Bush. She was doing her best to erode his credibility. After all, he is not the best candidate for the Republican side.
The major fact that he did an about-face from his brother's decision made him a candidate that I would not vote for in the general elections.
In fact, any Republican candidate for president... that states or believes that he/she would not have ordered the Iraq invasion "knowing what they know now"... would not get my vote. If the ultimate Republican nominee is an agreement in this regard with Laura Ingraham, there's an excellent chance that I would not vote Republican for president in 2016.
So yes, I could understand that she's pulling all she could pull to torpedo Jeb Bush's credibility. However...
If I were president in early 2003, I still would've ordered the invasion of Iraq knowing what I know now.
Whether she realizes it or not, she labels those of us on my side of the argument as "having something wrong."
I mean, really? I strongly believe, based on the facts and on historical context, that going into Iraq was/is a smart thing to do. I strongly believe that we still should have gone in when we ultimately went in.
I say this knowing what I know now for an action I would still take had I been President Bush in early 2003.
It is our ability to learn from the past that makes us hold strongly to the argument that yes, we would order the invasion of Iraq knowing what we know now.
Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, was an asymmetrical threat to the United States. He spent much of the 1990s, and early 2000's, playing games with the United Nations weapons inspections.
A Russian defector wrote the book, Through the Eyes of the Enemy.
The author, Stanislav Lunev, went into detail on how he, as a member of a para-special forces unit in Russia, trained the Iraqis on deception with regards to weapons of mass destruction. He talked about how he trained them to create the WMD casing that look like anything that you would find in the environment.
Considering that the terrorists used MRE wrappers as IED casing speaks to this account being close to reality.
When they got word that the inspection team was coming to an area that had WMD, the Russian military provided advice on how to move and hide that WMD.
Too farfetched?
Saddam Hussein complained about how members of the Western inspection teams were "spies" or "agents of intelligence agencies."
The methods that Stanislav Lunev talked about in his book, Through the Eyes of the Enemy, turned up again during Collen Powell's testimony to the United Nations. Collen Powell's accounts of how the Iraqis were moving suspicious items match with the descriptions for similar events given in the book, Through the Eyes of the Enemy.
Saddam Hussein was an asymmetrical threat that had to be removed from power.
On one hand, we had Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda dreaming of "fantastic" and "spectacular" attacks on US soil. On the other hand? We have Saddam Hussein refusing to come clean with his weapons of mass destruction program or weapons of mass destruction.
Those who say that Saddam Hussein would not have gotten along with Osama bin Laden fail to understand the following Arab saying:
"An enemy of an enemy is a friend."
They also fail to see our own history where capitalist United States worked with communist Soviet Union to fight the Axis Powers.
Saddam Hussein has a history of supporting terrorism in the Middle East. Then we had this case of a terrorist training camp in Iraq, where some of the cadre admitted to training Al Qaeda. They may not have had joint cooperation with regards to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
However, one has to see this from an asymmetrical warfare standpoint. Those reading the reports of the two inspection teams that the US sent to Iraq post invasion... without the bias offered by the media... would see that the inspection teams could not rule out movement of WMD to another country.
They couldn't rule out the possibility that WMD existed in parts of the country that they did not check.
Both reports essentially said that in the areas that they searched, they cannot find WMD. Any attempts to describe the parts of Iraq that was not searched based on the findings of a limited search would be irresponsible.
That's what the mainstream media did. They extrapolated the results of a limited search and applied it to the entire country. That's academically irresponsible.
We had a situation where Al Qaeda is looking for a way to commit mass terrorism on US soil. That's still the case now. At the same time, we had a madman refusing to come clean with his WMD with the intention of reconstituting his WMD program. These conditions created an asymmetrical warfare version of standing in the middle of the room... Waist high in easily flammable liquid... With a man playing with matches.
We had to go in given those conditions. As I mentioned earlier, it was not just about WMD. It was also about setting the right conditions in the Middle East. These are conditions that would facilitate rapid economic and democratic growth in the Middle East. It was a process that was to happen over a long period of time.
History has been cruel to those who assumed that a specific type of weapon did not exist.
The only people that I notice, that have no ability to learn from the past, are those that still insist that there were "no" WMD in Iraq.
They fail to recognize the numerous articles written attesting to WMD being found in Iraq post invasion.
They fail to learn from history. For example, in a morning in the Philippines in the late 19th century, Filipinos slaughtered American soldiers in the mess tent. They used weapons that certain American sentries thought "did not exist."
History has been brutal to those that think that certain weapons "did not exist."
What reasonable human being, one that's capable of learning, would ignore the facts in favor of media propaganda? That's where the statement, "There's something wrong with you," should be applied.
I'm sorry, the Iraqi security personnel that suffered IED burns, on their skin, would disagree. The burn on their skin represent the aftermath of a blister agent laced IED. Blister agents are examples of WMD. This speaks volumes of the fact that WMD was in Iraq as President Bush argued.
Originally stated by Laura Ingraham
But that's, that that's just a fun hypothetical but you have to say no to that! You can't say, "yes I still would've gone into Iraq! Or and if you do, you just have to have, there has to be something wrong with you! You can't still think that going into Iraq now as a sane human being was the right thing to do! I don't, I just, that's just, that's like you have no ability to learn from past mistakes at all! Well when the past mistakes were made by your brother.
Why can't we? Because most of the media claims that there were "no" WMD in Iraq... despite the fact that the WMD kept turning up throughout the Iraq War?
I understand that Laura Ingraham was busy hammering Jeb Bush. She was doing her best to erode his credibility. After all, he is not the best candidate for the Republican side.
The major fact that he did an about-face from his brother's decision made him a candidate that I would not vote for in the general elections.
In fact, any Republican candidate for president... that states or believes that he/she would not have ordered the Iraq invasion "knowing what they know now"... would not get my vote. If the ultimate Republican nominee is an agreement in this regard with Laura Ingraham, there's an excellent chance that I would not vote Republican for president in 2016.
So yes, I could understand that she's pulling all she could pull to torpedo Jeb Bush's credibility. However...
If I were president in early 2003, I still would've ordered the invasion of Iraq knowing what I know now.
Whether she realizes it or not, she labels those of us on my side of the argument as "having something wrong."
I mean, really? I strongly believe, based on the facts and on historical context, that going into Iraq was/is a smart thing to do. I strongly believe that we still should have gone in when we ultimately went in.
I say this knowing what I know now for an action I would still take had I been President Bush in early 2003.
It is our ability to learn from the past that makes us hold strongly to the argument that yes, we would order the invasion of Iraq knowing what we know now.
Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, was an asymmetrical threat to the United States. He spent much of the 1990s, and early 2000's, playing games with the United Nations weapons inspections.
A Russian defector wrote the book, Through the Eyes of the Enemy.
The author, Stanislav Lunev, went into detail on how he, as a member of a para-special forces unit in Russia, trained the Iraqis on deception with regards to weapons of mass destruction. He talked about how he trained them to create the WMD casing that look like anything that you would find in the environment.
Considering that the terrorists used MRE wrappers as IED casing speaks to this account being close to reality.
When they got word that the inspection team was coming to an area that had WMD, the Russian military provided advice on how to move and hide that WMD.
Too farfetched?
Saddam Hussein complained about how members of the Western inspection teams were "spies" or "agents of intelligence agencies."
The methods that Stanislav Lunev talked about in his book, Through the Eyes of the Enemy, turned up again during Collen Powell's testimony to the United Nations. Collen Powell's accounts of how the Iraqis were moving suspicious items match with the descriptions for similar events given in the book, Through the Eyes of the Enemy.
Saddam Hussein was an asymmetrical threat that had to be removed from power.
On one hand, we had Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda dreaming of "fantastic" and "spectacular" attacks on US soil. On the other hand? We have Saddam Hussein refusing to come clean with his weapons of mass destruction program or weapons of mass destruction.
Those who say that Saddam Hussein would not have gotten along with Osama bin Laden fail to understand the following Arab saying:
"An enemy of an enemy is a friend."
They also fail to see our own history where capitalist United States worked with communist Soviet Union to fight the Axis Powers.
Saddam Hussein has a history of supporting terrorism in the Middle East. Then we had this case of a terrorist training camp in Iraq, where some of the cadre admitted to training Al Qaeda. They may not have had joint cooperation with regards to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
However, one has to see this from an asymmetrical warfare standpoint. Those reading the reports of the two inspection teams that the US sent to Iraq post invasion... without the bias offered by the media... would see that the inspection teams could not rule out movement of WMD to another country.
They couldn't rule out the possibility that WMD existed in parts of the country that they did not check.
Both reports essentially said that in the areas that they searched, they cannot find WMD. Any attempts to describe the parts of Iraq that was not searched based on the findings of a limited search would be irresponsible.
That's what the mainstream media did. They extrapolated the results of a limited search and applied it to the entire country. That's academically irresponsible.
We had a situation where Al Qaeda is looking for a way to commit mass terrorism on US soil. That's still the case now. At the same time, we had a madman refusing to come clean with his WMD with the intention of reconstituting his WMD program. These conditions created an asymmetrical warfare version of standing in the middle of the room... Waist high in easily flammable liquid... With a man playing with matches.
We had to go in given those conditions. As I mentioned earlier, it was not just about WMD. It was also about setting the right conditions in the Middle East. These are conditions that would facilitate rapid economic and democratic growth in the Middle East. It was a process that was to happen over a long period of time.
History has been cruel to those who assumed that a specific type of weapon did not exist.
The only people that I notice, that have no ability to learn from the past, are those that still insist that there were "no" WMD in Iraq.
They fail to recognize the numerous articles written attesting to WMD being found in Iraq post invasion.
They fail to learn from history. For example, in a morning in the Philippines in the late 19th century, Filipinos slaughtered American soldiers in the mess tent. They used weapons that certain American sentries thought "did not exist."
History has been brutal to those that think that certain weapons "did not exist."
What reasonable human being, one that's capable of learning, would ignore the facts in favor of media propaganda? That's where the statement, "There's something wrong with you," should be applied.
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