30-Jan-10 News - Tony Blair faces questions about Iraq

[weak stream]

Again, one can think one way or another about the war. Many valid points on both sides. No insults however I spent more than enough years on campus to propose that college profs are as prone to opinion clustering as others. The reason for this I think has to do with maintaining friendly relationships with other faculty. I think any academic who omits/distorts facts is a nit wit. Anyone who follows this blog does so because they seek more than the msm feeds us. Honest debate, no foul.

[freddyv]

Jeez, now John's calling me a loon because I don't like to get lied to by the government and the media. Where's the WMDs John? Does it hurt too much to admit they were never found and you were lied to by everyone from Colin Powell to the NY Times to NPR to the WSJ to the Economist? If Saddam was still in Iraq - then Saddam would still be Iraq and it wouldn't have cost 2 trillion dollars for the U.S. military to babysit a bunch of Arabs.

Ridgel,

I suggest you calm down and look at the facts. The FACT is that we KNOW Saddam had WMD because he used them. Also, it has been shown that Saddam was trying to convince everyone he still had them even after he had (apparently) gotten rid of them so his neighbors would respect (fear) him. Just a tad bit of research on this subject would show you both of these things are true.

Therefore these people and the press certainly did not lie. If you know the facts and still insist they lied then YOU are denying the truth.

Now I am no fool, I knew at the time that they were making a case (for war) and I wasn't buying it. I did not think we had reason to go to war when it was obvious we had Saddam on the run. But once we went to war I believed that the only thing to do was to win the war ASAP, unfortunately it took a very long time. BTW, I think we may be worse off because we ruined a balance of power that kept both Iran and Iraq at each other's throats but I also think that Iraq is better off in the long run. We did what they should have but perhaps couldn't: killed Saddam and gave the people a chance at power.

Fred
http://www.acclaiminvesting.com/

[Guest]

Again - Fred tells me to calm down, attacking the speaker instead of the argument. Fred, Colin Powell got in front of the U.N. as a representative of the United States and told the world that we knew where the WMDs were and had conclusive evidence of them. That was clearly a lie - or a stretch of the truth or a misunderstanding if you want to refer to a lie with the political euphemisms.

[shoshin]

John (and others), respectfully, I don't believe we did win. If the idea was to "change the political landscape in the Middle East," we didn't. If the idea was to get the Iraqis to work together in a single, united state, I don't think so. But most importantly, we should ask the families of those killed or grievously maimed if they think it was worth it. The cost of this debacle goes well beyond the billions spent on materiel and salaries and logistics. Our veterans from this war will have to be supported (as well they deserve) for decades, and no one seems to have figured that into the equation. In the debate over "surging" in Afghanistan, the figure quoted was $1,000,000/year/soldier. Yet, the long-term support of those soldiers (as veterans, as injured rehabs, as the dead) was not part of that calculation.

see Ricks's latest book...

http://www.amazon.com/Gamble-Petraeus-A ... 900&sr=8-2