Yep, please pity me living out here in paradise all year. You can't imagine the distress of waking up and finding the temperature to be under 78 degrees at times. Oh the horror, the horror.... By the way, Doc, you still think I'm a cop?!? ROFLMAO!!
it seems like you've been trying to establish that because cheney didn't explicitly express an expectation of 'losing', the fact that he said going in would result in a quagmire doesn't equate to enough foreknowledge of the current situation to question whether this was an intended result personally i think it's reasonable to question whether the quagmire was an intended outcome after watching him predict one 'losing', 'cutting and running' and 'tail between the legs' are overly simplistic, emotional political marketing terms designed to attribute blame for the outcome to someone else. the fact is, we're still there and it's a quagmire right now
Cheney used the term "quagmire" in reference to what the situation would be like should Syria claim parts of Iraq in the west, Iran claim the eastern part, and the Kurds in the north break off, join with the Turkish Kurds, and thus "threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey." Your insisting that it is a quagmire does not make it so, and it certainly does not equate with Cheney's definition as you have been insisting. If you want to villify the US for Iraq, how about Bush Sr. abandoning the Shi'a and Kurds in '91 after encouraging them to revolt after we'd kicked Sadam out of Kuwait? To me that is one of the most shameful episodes in our history and one that warrants severe and lengthy inquiry and criticism. Just find something worthy to hang your hat on instead of taking phrases from 15 and 17 year old interviews, long before W decided to try this grand experiment of his, and quoting them out of context.
No he was not. Please study the meaning further, apply it to this context, and you will find it has no merit.
Golly, your right! What is certain, is moral equivalency is dumb. In the same measure as the first gulf war to free kuwait was regarded as a shocking bit of inflammatory politics by the iraqis, (standard policy of all us admins, by the way, starving the populace through sanctions to encourage dissent/rebellion) its equally true the first gulf war (and vietnam) were sanctioned internationally in their very specific scope. What's unfortunate, is the tendency of wingnuts to simply lay all the blame at the feet of international bodies, rather than examine the specific shortcomings of their own international policy and strategy that leads to the common refrain , "they wouldnt let us win!!, we woz robbed!" Failing that, any justification for the action will do, and a brutal dictatorship is as good as any, and better than most. Its still a quagmire though, absolutely no question-ill beleive it isnt, when its reported there are NO car bombings in a given week, and Sadr publicly states the allies were right to remove saddam, and for which he's very grateful, and offers happy hannukah blessings to israel and acknowledges santa claus as his favourite spiritual guide, professe's beleif in the tooth fairy, removes his beard, converts to Krishna, and dances backwards arm in arm with the president of iran doing an irish jig, through a hamas parade singing Auld Land sine. But maybe im just cynical. Its possible.
Golly, you've stepped in so deep again I'll just quote this one particularly example where you manage to say nothing about the fact that it was Saddam who starved his own people, not the US. Had he followed the process of the sanctions and spent the money on food for his people instead of adding to his collection of palaces..... But oh, I forgot, it's not Saddam's fault because it was the US that caused the sanctions!! Ah, yes, once again, the US is the culprit! Of course...
*Ahem*, i was going to get around to the obvious choice saddam had regarding UN weopons inspections, but you beat me to it. But he had tried to kill shrub senior, and had fired scuds at israel, right? Super terrorist, surely. Nutter, in charge of more stuff than he can be trusted with; nobody else did that, did they? Would they? (that's not a rhetorical question) Apart from syria, unnoficially. Odd, how syria goes largely unmentioned in the press............. Oh, the WMD's, thats right. Saddam starved his own people, same as Castro did, of course. Bow down to the might that's right, or die, or fight. Talk about moral equivelancy, geesh. Historically, im struggling to come up with a single instance, where said behaviour had the actual desired effect of causing a government/king/ruling class to simply take what was on offer, rather than slaughter the lower classes in an effort to circumvent such policies (normally called war, the basis of conscription). But, it remains that your quoting an enlisted man, to describe the horrors of, or justification for war, when the financiers and the thrice paid privateers say nought, and go about their "business" of securing oil wells, escorting diplomats. How many diplomats are their, and what the hell are they doing? In heavily armed motocades, its unlikely their having a freindly chat with the locals over some tea and khat, whilst partaking of a delicious middle eastern dish, sans sheep eyballs and the like. Riddle me this; If there are more privateers than soldiers, (there are) and the privateers job is to protect businessman, diplomats, then; How can the heartbreaking cause, so meaningfully elaborated by your mystery soldier, be WORTH SHIT, to anyone, apart from the soldiers, themselves?????????? BLACKWATER, private ARMIES that you pay for. And will keep paying for, do you know for a fact the figures for these "COSTS" are on the books, of anything? So Mr Hap, why DO the grunts wear all the pain, when you know their fight is meaningless?
You paint a broad stroke with a broken brush, my friend, so (of course) I disagree with most of what you have written. You believe "the cause," "apart from the soldiers themselves" is "worth shit" to the "privateers," diplomats, businessmen, etc. I doubt very much that the diplomats care nothing about "the cause," or that businessmen would not like to see things become stable so their businesses may be safe and prosper. Private armies like Blackwater? Who gives a shit what they think. They're there to protect diplomats and VIPs. Big freakin' deal. The grunts wear all the pain because they're the ones doing the fighting and the dying and getting injured (and of course the occasional Blackwater employee or two or three or four, whose corpses are disfigured and then hung up for public amusement). And when did I ever say their fight was meaningless?
You didnt, which was the point of this thread. A grunt, on a tiny fraction of the pay as a privateer, says it was good, and moral, and justified, from his perspective, based on what he had seen. Super. How does this grunt, feel about it being paid for out of iraqi oil, which he MUST be aware, will be a long time coming-particularly with so many contracts going to the chinese, or other nations less concerned about the specific safety of their workers than the bottom dollar. How does he feel, about the fact more is invested in securing said oil wells, than the very lives of the oppressed , tortured, bombed out and generally unfortunate victims of this war, that he feels was so just-when the same goddamn murdering savages are STILL wreaking havoc throughout the countryside? Quite right, its not worth shit-the diplomats, and privateers efforts are worth a FREAKIN BUNDLE of money. How does this gi joe feel about that. Some comment would be nice, there. Plenty of potentates, (not potato's, with an E, potentates) have opened up a big can of stoopid, and painted themselves with broad brush strokes into a corner. This appears to be one of them, and naturally, i disagree with your diagreement