Saddam and Bush in a nutshell

[radfringe]

The Bush spin on Iraq is now - Saddam is a bad man, we got rid of him, hooray for us, we are honorable and fight terrorism

Many reich-wing talkingheads have been emphasising just how bad Saddam was and that this is justification for invading Iraq. They carefully sidestep any issues, questions or confrontations that would force them to admit that BUSH LIED.

so in a nutshell - I ask "Do the ends justify the means?"

The end - Saddam is gone
The means - Manipulation of public opinion through lies and deceit

again, I ask "Do the ends justify the means?"

We are told and reassured that we are an honorable country. So tell me how does invading another country based on lies and deciet make us honorable?

and thrice, I ask "Do the ends justify the means?"

[ameriphile]

1. Saddam and Bush -- two nuts in the same shell

n/t

[onebigbadwulf]

2. Such lies

Saddam is a bad man, we got rid of him, hooray for us, we are honorable and fight terrorism



1. we didn't get him
2. he wasn't a terrorist
3. we turned him into one the second we invaded

:crazy: Maybe if * didn't suffer permanent brain damage...we would have some reality coming out of the White House.

[Bandit]

3. Saddam became a bad man after dealing with Reagan and Bush 1

Nobody thought one way or another about Saddam until Reagan and Rumsfeld, got to him and sold him large amounts of weaponry that had been banned by most civilized countries of the world. We built up his Arms and steered him towards Iran and cheered when he used those weapons we gave him. We stowed many honors upon saddam and then stabbed him in the back just like we did Noriega.

[DealsGapRider]

6. I think we can safely assume that...

Saddam was a bad guy before he dealt with Raygun and Bush I. Yes, they sold him weapons they shouldn't have, but he was oppressing his people long before Raygun was elected. And the bulk of his weaponry came from the Soviet Union. He probably would have invaded Iran no matter which American president was in power.

[Jacobin]

4. Only one teeny tiny little problem with all that

Saddam is not gone. He is just in hiding.

And Smirk has installed his own military government to repress the feuding factions, much as Saddam did.

And the oil is not flowing.

And it's costing too much.

And Americans are getting killed.

And there are no WMD, except in Smirk and Cheney's imaginations.

And Iraqis are getting killed by the thousands.

I'm preaching to the choir, but....what the heck

[nostamj]

5. uh...........

the end: wherabouts of Saddam are unknown
the means: massive arial bombardment with thousands of civilian casualities

the present: chaos and death

and then there's <shhhhhhhhh..........> Afghanistan.

[ShimokitaJer]

7. "The ends justify the means" is overly simplistic

You have to take into account whether the same goal could have been accomplished without the same costs and sacrifices.

Could we have contained the threat Saddam posed without going to war? Yes, we had done so successfully for ten years through sanctions and selective attacks. Of course, that would mean acknowledging the success of Clinton's approach and

Could we have taken Saddam's WMD's away from him? Yes, if they had ever existed we could have disarmed him. We had international support for the effort to inspect Iraq and good intelligence that told us there was no immediate threat.

Did we need to bear all the expenses ourselves? No, the divide between the US and the civilized world (of which the US and Britain used to be members) was the result of an overly enthusiastic rush to war based on faulty or falsified information.

Funny how all of the above could have been avoided with a little bit of honesty.

Don't ever let the Republicans tell you that all that matters is that Saddam is out of power.