Author Topic: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein  (Read 9922 times)

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Online Lando Lincoln

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #75 on: April 30, 2015, 04:16:06 pm »
Sorry about the source. It's the only place I could find this.

A Grand Strategy of Transformation

Thank you for that Luis.  Some fine people commenting there also...  Some of the comments were quite prescient.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2015, 04:16:35 pm by Lando Lincoln »
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Offline Luis Gonzalez

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #76 on: April 30, 2015, 04:17:10 pm »
BFD, Dexter.

They NEED to be outraged.  Outraged at their militant minority for putting their religion and lives at risk.

They'll be outrages alright.   For about a week.  Then, they'll be begging forgiveness.

Every Muslim in the world needs to understand that if an act of terror gets carried out at the Vatican, we will blow Mecca into the 10th century.
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

Offline Dexter

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #77 on: April 30, 2015, 04:18:17 pm »
P.S. There aren't "billions of Muslims in the world", there are @1.5 billion Muslims in the world.

Oh, forgive me for overestimating the size of their club.

Around 500,000 Iraqis have been killed in the Iraq war, most of whom were not terrorists. That is roughly 0.03% of those 1.5 billion. How many years do you reckon it will take to get the job done?
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Offline Dexter

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #78 on: April 30, 2015, 04:20:25 pm »
In the eyes of Islamic radicalism, we are what stands between them and world domination.

Well they're sure doing a piss poor job of stopping us, their mortal enemy. It almost seems like they completely lack the ability to do so. You also ignored the most important part of what I said again.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2015, 04:21:22 pm by Dexter »
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Offline aligncare

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #79 on: April 30, 2015, 04:20:27 pm »
Reasonable points, all.

I can add nothing of substance here, except to say the president's job may be the most demanding on earth and should have gone to someone deserving of the honor. Someone capable of living up to the duty imposed by the office.

Obama was never that someone, never a man of substance. He chose to wing it and play golf instead.

America is poorer in so may ways for that 2008 and 2012 vote.


Offline Dexter

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #80 on: April 30, 2015, 04:24:23 pm »
BFD, Dexter.

They NEED to be outraged.  Outraged at their militant minority for putting their religion and lives at risk.

They'll be outraged alright.   For about a week.  Then, they'll be begging forgiveness and for mercy.

They won't get outraged at their militant minority. Their militant minority will say "Look! See? We told you they were trying to destroy our way of life! We must stop them before Islam is completely destroyed." and more people than ever will join them.
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Offline truth_seeker

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #81 on: April 30, 2015, 04:46:43 pm »
The Nazis and Japanese wore uniforms that made it really easy to distinguish them from the millions of people that live in those countries. There isn't a bunch of military bases and airfields we can destroy to cripple them. There isn't infrastructure churning out guns and death machines. These are desperate people using desperate means to carry out their extremism, and no amount of killing is going to correct the problem. People try to draw lines between our struggle in the Middle East and World War 2 constantly, but the truth of the matter is this is nothing like World War 2. What worked then doesn't necessarily work now.
You keep saying the two wars are not the same. I say our response has been different, but otherwise they are similar. Our response is an unwillingness to kill civilians muslims. Our response has been lack of resolve to have plenty of troops available.

Take the Japanese. They committed atrocities in China that shocked the world. In the battle of Okinawa, the largest allied loss of life was from Kamikaze attacks on the ships standing offshore.

The Japanese were Terrorists with a capital T. Our response was a willingness to kill civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The results have been different; WWII a permanent and total victory, whereas the half-measure against Islamic terrorists are losing ground.

During WWII the US population stood at 160 million, and of that 16 million served in uniforms. During the immediate aftermath of hostilities in Germany, a program of de-nazification was followed. Every person was scrutinized, for those who might have Nazi sympathies.

We didn't sit back and say "they don't wear uniforms, so it is too hard to do."

In contrast, the US have tried to wage war against Islamic terror by half-measures. The total manpower levels require sending our troops back to multiple deployments. We wear them out, because there are not enough of them.

I do get where you come from. I could see how a troop these days could become disillusioned, when crappy politicians hold the military back from total victory.

I have a niece and her husband, that both served in the war on terror. Multiple deployments. I told him about my understanding of WWII troops. My niece's husband said he didn't think his generation could do that; they weren't that good.

Today failure in the war on terror is viewed as an acceptable outcome, since people don't imagine the consequences. Partly because so few have a connection to the war or the consequences.

In WWII we rationed rubber, gasoline, etc. We had blackouts, and the draft. The West coast feared attack, with justification.

It flows from the top. GW Bush started strong after 9/11/2001 but gradually fell away from intelligent, total commitment to victory.  He listened to Rumsfeld say he could do it with fewer troops, for example--but that was wrong.

GW Bush could have said on 9/12/2001 that we were starting the draft up, because we were going to defeat Islamic terrorism. 

"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Online Lando Lincoln

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #82 on: April 30, 2015, 05:00:53 pm »
We threaded the needle, paid enormously in doing so, and Obama frittered it away.  Arrogantly.  Ignorantly.  And it was, he believed, politically expedient.  He sang for the choir.

We will experience another calamity.  My being and my soul is certain of that.  I pray it is "survivable".  Our only chance of turning things back - now or then - is to mean...everything...we...say.  When the host state/country gets the message, we will have a chance.  Not until then.

“We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”  President George W. Bush

We failed when it mattered the most.
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Offline Dexter

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #83 on: April 30, 2015, 05:01:21 pm »
You keep saying the two wars are not the same. I say our response has been different, but otherwise they are similar. Our response is an unwillingness to kill civilians muslims. Our response has been lack of resolve to have plenty of troops available.

We've killed far more civilians than anything. We don't have an unwillingness to kill civilians when we know we can also kill terrorists. We have the most powerful and robust military on the planet by an incredible margin. I think there was plenty of troops and firepower available.

Take the Japanese. They committed atrocities in China that shocked the world. In the battle of Okinawa, the largest allied loss of life was from Kamikaze attacks on the ships standing offshore.

The Japanese were Terrorists with a capital T. Our response was a willingness to kill civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The results have been different; WWII a permanent and total victory, whereas the half-measure against Islamic terrorists are losing ground.

The difference is in World War 2 we knew that if we could just stop Hitler and the emperor of Japan their governments and the threat they represent would disappear. There is no big boss in the Islamic world that we can stop/kill to end extremism. In World War 2 we were fighting governments and their military. In Iraq we are fighting an idea not represented by either of those things. There is no simple way to end the problem.

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Offline musiclady

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #84 on: April 30, 2015, 05:15:44 pm »


How could anybody say liberating Iraq was a mistake?

Obama walked away from the SOF (Status of Forces) Agreement. under the guise of protecting our troops.  He stopped all negotiations once Iraqi officials demanded that American soldiers be subject to Sharia and for possible war crimes.

Iraq relented to no avail.  Nobody answered the 3AM phone call.

Needs to be said again....

Thanks, DC!
Character still matters.  It always matters.

I wear a mask as an exercise in liberty and love for others.  To see it as an infringement of liberty is to entirely miss the point.  Be kind.

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Use the time God is giving us to seek His will and feel His presence.

Offline musiclady

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #85 on: April 30, 2015, 05:18:53 pm »
What does our involvement there do to help protect us here? Acts of terror can be carried out with very few people. There is no logical connection between our wars there and our safety here.

No 'logical' connection between an ideology that wants us destroyed and the need to protect ourselves from it.

If we just leave the bad guys alone, they'll leave us alone......


Right.......  **nononono*
Character still matters.  It always matters.

I wear a mask as an exercise in liberty and love for others.  To see it as an infringement of liberty is to entirely miss the point.  Be kind.

"Sometimes I think the Church would be better off if we would call a moratorium on activity for about six weeks and just wait on God to see what He is waiting to do for us. That's what they did before Pentecost."   - A. W. Tozer

Use the time God is giving us to seek His will and feel His presence.

Offline musiclady

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #86 on: April 30, 2015, 05:23:50 pm »
Oh, forgive me for overestimating the size of their club.

Around 500,000 Iraqis have been killed in the Iraq war, most of whom were not terrorists. That is roughly 0.03% of those 1.5 billion. How many years do you reckon it will take to get the job done?

You're conveniently ignoring the fact that those Iraqis were killed by the same terrorists that you say we should ignore.

You can't be bothered by Iraqi deaths while at the same time you say we should ignore those who kill them.

Are you bothered by all the women and young girls being raped and tortured, the crucifixions and beheadings of Christian Iraqis at the hands of those who were emboldened by Obama's negligence?  How do you defend ignoring that kind of brutality that is the direct result of the peacenik punk in the WH who chose politics over decency?
Character still matters.  It always matters.

I wear a mask as an exercise in liberty and love for others.  To see it as an infringement of liberty is to entirely miss the point.  Be kind.

"Sometimes I think the Church would be better off if we would call a moratorium on activity for about six weeks and just wait on God to see what He is waiting to do for us. That's what they did before Pentecost."   - A. W. Tozer

Use the time God is giving us to seek His will and feel His presence.

Offline Dexter

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #87 on: April 30, 2015, 05:28:57 pm »
No 'logical' connection between an ideology that wants us destroyed and the need to protect ourselves from it.

If we just leave the bad guys alone, they'll leave us alone......


Right.......  **nononono*

You seem to be under the false impression that we have a reliable way to protect ourselves from terrorism. Doing nothing is better than wasting a lot of lives and money doing something that doesn't work.
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Offline Dexter

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #88 on: April 30, 2015, 05:30:57 pm »
You're conveniently ignoring the fact that those Iraqis were killed by the same terrorists that you say we should ignore.

You can't be bothered by Iraqi deaths while at the same time you say we should ignore those who kill them.

Are you bothered by all the women and young girls being raped and tortured, the crucifixions and beheadings of Christian Iraqis at the hands of those who were emboldened by Obama's negligence?  How do you defend ignoring that kind of brutality that is the direct result of the peacenik punk in the WH who chose politics over decency?

You don't actually believe terrorists killed most of those civilians, do you? I'm bothered by many things that happen in the world, but I like to keep my expectations inside reality.
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Offline musiclady

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #89 on: April 30, 2015, 05:46:46 pm »
You don't actually believe terrorists killed most of those civilians, do you? I'm bothered by many things that happen in the world, but I like to keep my expectations inside reality.

Well, I don't agree with John F. Kerry and Dick Durbin that our own forces were terrorists.......... do you?

Who do you think killed them?  Who do you think bombed markets, hospitals and schools?  Our troops??

Who do you think were the bad guys in Iraq?  Our troops?? 

Who do you think wantonly killed civilians?  Our troops??

I think it's time for you to say what you really think, Dex, and stop all this implication.  Tell us what you really think about our troops and what they've done....
Character still matters.  It always matters.

I wear a mask as an exercise in liberty and love for others.  To see it as an infringement of liberty is to entirely miss the point.  Be kind.

"Sometimes I think the Church would be better off if we would call a moratorium on activity for about six weeks and just wait on God to see what He is waiting to do for us. That's what they did before Pentecost."   - A. W. Tozer

Use the time God is giving us to seek His will and feel His presence.

Offline Dexter

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #90 on: April 30, 2015, 05:56:46 pm »
Well, I don't agree with John F. Kerry and Dick Durbin that our own forces were terrorists.......... do you?

No, I don't, but I do think they are seen that way by a lot of people living in the Middle East.

Who do you think killed them?  Who do you think bombed markets, hospitals and schools?  Our troops??

I think most of them were collateral damage caused by our misguided attempts to do the right thing.

Who do you think were the bad guys in Iraq?  Our troops?? 

I'm a relativist. I'll probably get a lot of flak for this, but I don't feel there are bad guys. I think the extremists are ignorant people that believe they are doing the right thing. That doesn't mean what they're doing isn't bad, just that they are too ignorant/misguided to realize it. If you grew up in the Middle East and all of the adults in your life told you the United States was bad and all you ever saw was their occupation of the country you live in there is a good chance you wouldn't like the United States either. In the end it is all about perspective. I think most human violence comes from an inability to understand each other.


I think it's time for you to say what you really think, Dex, and stop all this implication.  Tell us what you really think about our troops and what they've done....

I think you need to stop lumping my brothers and sisters in with the criminal political system that sent them there. Soldiers are not responsible for anything that has happened. They are heroes for stepping up and filling an important role.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2015, 05:58:38 pm by Dexter »
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Offline musiclady

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #91 on: April 30, 2015, 06:19:54 pm »
I've got to go and give a final.  When I come back, I'll deal with the liberal tripe in the above post....
Character still matters.  It always matters.

I wear a mask as an exercise in liberty and love for others.  To see it as an infringement of liberty is to entirely miss the point.  Be kind.

"Sometimes I think the Church would be better off if we would call a moratorium on activity for about six weeks and just wait on God to see what He is waiting to do for us. That's what they did before Pentecost."   - A. W. Tozer

Use the time God is giving us to seek His will and feel His presence.

Offline Dexter

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #92 on: April 30, 2015, 06:40:47 pm »
I've got to go and give a final.  When I come back, I'll deal with the liberal tripe in the above post....

I see you're already getting your dismissive labels prepped.
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Offline NavyCanDo

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #93 on: April 30, 2015, 06:53:27 pm »
I'm going to disagree with the majority here.

I still believe that it was the right decision to go into Iraq.  There were mistakes along the way that prolonged the problems (causing the loss in 2006), but we had the country under control by 2008, and we had an ally in the ME.

The biggest problems were not the cost (war is expensive, and we had no rationing at home as in WWII), nor the loss of life (it was a very small number relative to any other war).  The real problem was that the leftist media created a 'war weary' nation with their hostility toward Bush and our troops, when in reality, the only people in America who suffered because of the war were those of us who had sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters in harm's way.

The loss of Iraq in the hands of Barack HUSSEIN Obama was purely political and anti-American.  If we had a patriot who followed Bush and any real journalists in the media, the memory of Iraq would be entirely different.

We would remember that we toppled a tyrant.
We would remember that Saddam was still at war with us in 2003.
We would remember that we killed thousands of terrorists during the conflict.
We would remember that we had an ally in the ME, however shaky.

True, the warring factions in the ME have thousands of years of history, but we DID create one stable country in the heart of the ME.

It is Obama who lost it.

No disagreement from me.   Too easy we forget what led up to the night of Shock & Awe.  Any one here remember the beheadings in the soccer field? The gays being tossed from the tops of buildings?   That wasn't Al Queda. That wasn't ISIS. That WAS Saddam.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2015, 06:55:58 pm by NavyCanDo »
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Offline truth_seeker

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #94 on: April 30, 2015, 07:05:51 pm »
No disagreement from me.   Too easy we forget what led up to the night of Shock & Awe.  Any one here remember the beheadings in the soccer field? The gays being tossed from the tops of buildings?   That wasn't Al Queda. That wasn't ISIS. That WAS Saddam.
Saddam harbored terrorists. One was a member of the group that hijacked the ship Achille Lauro in 1985, and murdered a wheelchair bound elderly Jewish man, Leon Klinghoffer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achille_Lauro_hijacking
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Offline Luis Gonzalez

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #95 on: April 30, 2015, 07:28:10 pm »
Oh, forgive me for overestimating the size of their club.

Around 500,000 Iraqis have been killed in the Iraq war, most of whom were not terrorists. That is roughly 0.03% of those 1.5 billion. How many years do you reckon it will take to get the job done?

That's a textbook example of the Straw Man logical fallacy.

We don't need to kill 1.5 billion Muslims to win the war any more than we needed to kill all Germans, Japanese and Italians to win WWII.

Not killing all Italians may have been an error in judgement however...

 :smokin:

 
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

Offline Dexter

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #96 on: April 30, 2015, 07:33:31 pm »
That's a textbook example of the Straw Man logical fallacy.

We don't need to kill 1.5 billion Muslims to win the war any more than we needed to kill all Germans, Japanese and Italians to win WWII.

Not killing all Italians may have been an error in judgement however...

 :smokin:

 

Well we apparently need to kill a whole lot more to win, right? We weren't thorough enough according to many. Are you going to address the main point I made earlier?
« Last Edit: April 30, 2015, 07:34:30 pm by Dexter »
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Offline Luis Gonzalez

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #97 on: April 30, 2015, 07:47:19 pm »
The way to victory is to smother the practice of their so-called religion.

Destroy ALL mosques.  Execute all religious leaders.  Gentrify the MFs.   

They don't deserve Islam if they are going to practice the 14th century version in the 21st century.

We won't eradicate the violence.  But we sure will temper it for a few generations at least.

We knocked off Hussein and put all those boots on the ground for a couple of reasons. One was simple... if you're going to go to war in a specific region, you may as well knock out the guy with the biggest Army first, so you don't have to spend time looking over your shoulder to see what he's doing, and once Hussein was gone, the other, more complicated reason, to send a clear signal to every player in the region that there were 100,000+ battle-hardened American troops ready to strike anywhere in a matter of days, if not hours if needed. 

We should have kept a heavy presence there and tried impacting their culture by our just being there. The way to beat this enemy is to force a Renaissance on them. That's what the Arab Spring was all about, but the other radical Muslim player in the world stage chose to not help those trying to modernize Islamic countries.

We tired of waging war after a few years against an enemy that's used to thinking in terms of wars spanning centuries.

If we don't think along those terms as well, we are bound to be conquered.

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

Offline Luis Gonzalez

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #98 on: April 30, 2015, 07:50:19 pm »
Well we apparently need to kill a whole lot more to win, right? We weren't thorough enough according to many. Are you going to address the main point I made earlier?

Every "point" you've made basically boils down to this: the best way to stop a bully from beating on you is to try and ignore the beating and the hope that his arms get tired.

Not worth addressing.
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

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Re: Rand Paul: It Was a 'Mistake' to Overthrow Saddam Hussein
« Reply #99 on: April 30, 2015, 07:52:38 pm »
"I know one thing, that I know nothing."
-Socrates