I mean really, do you have anything to back up what you just posted there, or is it all kool aid?

BTW- Blix thought that his home was bugged by us.

ChenZhen | Jun 13, 2008 | Reply

Uh-huh….and the very next line in the article says he has no evidence for the claim….

Hans Blix says he suspected his home and office were bugged by the United States.

But Blix said he had no hard evidence listening devices had been planted.

So, not sure what this has to do with anything unless you just like to throw out unsubstantiated claims (lies?) about weapons of mass destruction government wire tapping.

This is why it is hard to understand you lefties. Why do you believe and/or require no evidence of claims made by anyone as long as they are against Bush. But Bush can provide mountains of evidence and you question every piece of it and ignore what you can't explain away as a lie? You don't hold Saddam accountable for the 4 years he would not allow inspectors in. You don't hold Bill Clinton accountable for his part in the "run up to war"; nor do you mention that people suspected his administration of using UNSCOM to spy on the Iraqi military, which I would think would bother people like you who are so worried about how the government collects intelligence on our sworn enemies. You also never hold France or Russia accountable for agreeing to sanctions for Iraq to our face; all the while, making serious bank behind our backs and assuring Saddam that he could continue the charade because they would protect him at the UN. Had they not been on the take, luring Saddam into a false sense of security, Saddam may have complied much sooner to the weapons inspections. As it was, he only relented when he realized that Russia & France could no longer protect him. So many shades of gray….

Kind of makes you lefties look like simpletons; unable to pick up on the many “nuances” you claim to be experts on.

And yet it has worked.

The fact that we haven't seen another attack since 9/11 could easily be attributable to our actions in Afghanistan or a thousand other factors.

The difference between you and me is that the facts are behind me. History is behind me. I am not clinging to any justification. We had ever justification – legal, humanitarian, national security – to depose Saddam Hussein. In fact, those justifications were made quite amply by prominent Democrats like Jay Rockefeller, Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin, Al Gore, and many others. You may have seen the quotes. If not, they’ll make for instructive reasoning.

What I do not understand is how you can, in good conscience, deny that what happened actually happened. You remind me of a Flat Earther or one of those guys who swears the moon landing didn’t happen.

That's funny. Considering over half the country feels the way I do, maybe you shouldn't leave the house. There's crazy people everywhere!

Anyway, you say all that, and then say this:

Saddam Hussein was the one who didn’t let the inspectors finish their job, not George Bush. The inspectors were followed and harassed by armed thugs. Their rooms were bugged. They were prevented from inspecting the very places they most needed to inspect. Short of force, they could not ever finish their jobs.

They were in the middle of doing their jobs when we told them to leave. From the Blix briefing:

"Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming.

The inspections have taken place throughout Iraq at industrial sites, ammunition depots, research centres, universities, presidential sites, mobile laboratories, private houses, missile production facilities, military camps and agricultural sites. At all sites which had been inspected before 1998, re-baselining activities were performed. This included the identification of the function and contents of each building, new or old, at a site. It also included verification of previously tagged equipment, application of seals and tags, taking samples and discussions with the site personnel regarding past and present activities. At certain sites, ground-penetrating radar was used to look for underground structures or buried equipment.

Through the inspections conducted so far, we have obtained a good knowledge of the industrial and scientific landscape of Iraq, as well as of its missile capability but, as before, we do not know every cave and corner. Inspections are effectively helping to bridge the gap in knowledge that arose due to the absence of inspections between December 1998 and November 2002.

More than 200 chemical and more than 100 biological samples have been collected at different sites. Three-quarters of these have been screened using our own analytical laboratory capabilities at the Baghdad Centre (BOMVIC). The results to date have been consistent with Iraq's declarations."

I mean really, do you have anything to back up what you just posted there, or is it all kool aid?

BTW- Blix thought that his home was bugged by us.

Then why didn't he let the inspectors finish their job? Only because of the political calendar.

Well, it’s not the first time I’ve seen that argument, but the thing I always wonder is why Bush would have bothered with attaining an AUMF from Congress or, even more curiously, sending in inspectors if that was the case? Why not just invade?

Because the advice he was getting from the people around him was that he could afford the time to bring Congress, allies like Britain and Italy, and the UN Security Council into the effort. If we invaded on 9/12/01, or if Bill Clinton had invaded at any point in his administration, it would have been a legal action. It would likely not have been politic, though. Diplomacy, remember?

Uh huh. Well, that’s a nice assumption. Of course, it’s based on the idea that turning the Middle East upside down would be the best way of preventing another attack, which is something that in the very least is debatable (or borderline crazy, depending on who you ask).

And yet it has worked.

And for the second time, He did lie. He publicly stated on multiple occasions that he was trying to avoid an armed conflict. Sure, I thought it was a dumb idea as well, but you’re stating it as if those two things are mutually exclusive. They’re not.

What you're telling me is that going back to the UNSC the second time wasn't an effort to defuse the situation by trying to force compliance out of Saddam Hussein. I'm also supposed to believe that delaying the invasion twice after he had given Saddam Hussein a compliance date wasn't an effort to defuse the situation either.

The President gave Hussein several chances to do what he promised to do in 1991. He was very public about saying that the invasion did not have to happen if Hussein would only do what he was supposed to do. That is in no way a rush to war. Those are not the actions of a man who was bound and determined to go to war.

But hey, I get that you supported the war from the very beginning, and after no WMD’s found, thousands and thousands dead, hundreds of billions spent, and no end in sight, you have to desperately cling to some…any justification for your original position, no matter how far those magic goal posts move. I get it.

The difference between you and me is that the facts are behind me. History is behind me. I am not clinging to any justification. We had ever justification – legal, humanitarian, national security – to depose Saddam Hussein. In fact, those justifications were made quite amply by prominent Democrats like Jay Rockefeller, Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin, Al Gore, and many others. You may have seen the quotes. If not, they'll make for instructive reasoning.

What I do not understand is how you can, in good conscience, deny that what happened actually happened. You remind me of a Flat Earther or one of those guys who swears the moon landing didn't happen.

Chen, it doesn’t matter when he made the decision. It is completely immaterial to the discussion. Under the terms of the cease-fire that ended the First Gulf War, Bush could have given the order to invade the day he was sworn in and it still would have been a legal and just action.

Well, it's not the first time I've seen that argument, but the thing I always wonder is why Bush would have bothered with attaining an AUMF from Congress or, even more curiously, sending in inspectors if that was the case? Why not just invade?

That’s something folks who argue like you don’t get. It’s not that you’re not yelling “Bush lied” loudly enough. I get that you disagree with our being there. I get that you didn’t believe there were WMDs (though your party, the entire UN Security Council, and a good dozen other countries did). I get that the genocides of the Kurds and marsh Arabs meant nothing to you. I even get that after 9/11, you were still willing to take the chance on another attack. I get all of that.

Uh huh. Well, that's a nice assumption. Of course, it's based on the idea that turning the Middle East upside down would be the best way of preventing another attack, which is something that in the very least is debatable (or borderline crazy, depending on who you ask).

And for the second time, He did lie. He publicly stated on multiple occasions that he was trying to avoid an armed conflict. Sure, I thought it was a dumb idea as well, but you're stating it as if those two things are mutually exclusive. They're not.

But hey, I get that you supported the war from the very beginning, and after no WMD's found, thousands and thousands dead, hundreds of billions spent, and no end in sight, you have to desperately cling to some…any justification for your original position, no matter how far those magic goal posts move. I get it.