I know there was a stated policy of regime change, but executive action to execute it was indecisive.

You should stop going by your suspicions of insunuations, and just go by what I read. You’ll find I’m guite straightforward.

I think they were very decisive in dealing with saddam. There was a clear policy of containment.

“However in your case, I rather suspect you wished to point it out as a self-contraditory statement and by insinuation that it was part & parcel of the VRWC.”

Nah. I think the idiocy is bipartisan: I’m talking about you quoting a clinton man. Stop thinking about what ghosts you think i am chasing and start paying attention to what I actually wrote. you “rather suspect” and “insinuation”? thats all in your head my friend. I’m just replying to what you posted.

Meanwhile from the wayback machine, the Clinton admin is practically saying the same thing with regards to assessing the Saddamic threats – altho they were unwilling to act decisively against Saddam.

It’s called kicking the can down the road – something that lily-livered politicians are loath to do since they don’t have anything worth standing for except another term in office.

You challenged it how? “interesting that saddam’s at once capitulation is seen later in the same sentence as some sort of malevolent manipulation.”

Interesting only in the fact that this is how the game is played by malevolent tyrants. However in your case, I rather suspect you wished to point it out as a self-contraditory statement and by insinuation that it was part & parcel of the VRWC. Hence my ‘talk to Clinton’s man’ response.

I know ESL is tough for some people, but come on, a lack of logical thot processes can’t be blamed on language.

I would even go so far as to tell the insurgents that if another American dies in a terrorist attack on our soil, we will erase Mecca and Medina and go ahead with our plans to seize the Saudi oil fields. Don’t worry, REAL warriors like me are no longer in the service.

>>>Forget what America-hating Democrats say. They are going to say what they want anyway so with that in mind, we need to go back to racking up body counts in Iraq. Darn the intel. JUST KILL EVERYONE WHO ISN’T WEARING AN AMERICAN UNIFORM until they behave, quit and surrender.”

Well, I guess since nobody else is going to challenge Raymond and his statement, I guess I will.
What you have suggested sir, is GENOCIDE. Do you believe that is what America should stand for? Wholesale slaughter of men, women and children?
I don’t agree with this war, but you need to stop for a second, and UNDERSTAND what “killing everyone who isn’t wearing an American uniform” means.

–Cobra

Didn’t catch that. Thanks. – Admin

Its funny that you have this fetishistic belief that I don’t have opinions on things. Specially right after you:

1. posted an article
2. which I challenged.
3. which you bakced away from by telling me to talk to “clinton’s man”

I’m really in wonder at where you get your ideas.

Back in the day I did. We used to organize protests against clinton’s attacks on iraq, specially when they were timed to lewinsky stuff. disgusting stuff.

Nowadays I’m just left with addressing people who give us “excellent articles” that describe “the main concern of both administrations.” Clinton’s man or not.

“We don’t have an exit strategy, we have a victory strategy,” Rumsfeld told soldiers during a surprise visit to Baghdad, according to a pooled broadcast report from the capital. “The goal is to help the Iraqi Forces develop the skills and the capacity to provide their own security.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=a8sZejFz9ssI&refer=top_world_news

Couple that with reports on the ground from commanders:

>>>”"I think the more accurate way to approach this right now is to concede that … this insurgency is not going to be settled, the terrorists and the terrorism in Iraq is not going to be settled, through military options or military operations,” Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said last week, in a comment that echoes what other senior officers say. “It’s going to be settled in the political process.”

Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, expressed similar sentiments, calling the military’s efforts “the Pillsbury Doughboy idea” – pressing the insurgency in one area only causes it to rise elsewhere.

“Like in Baghdad,” Casey said during an interview with two newspaper reporters, including one from Knight Ridder, last week. “We push in Baghdad – they’re down to about less than a car bomb a day in Baghdad over the last week – but in north-center (Iraq) … they’ve gone up,” he said. “The political process will be the decisive element.”

The recognition that a military solution is not in the offing has led U.S. and Iraqi officials to signal they are willing to negotiate with insurgent groups, or their intermediaries.”

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/11879261.htm

So according to the Defense Secretary and Millitary commanders on the field, bombing Iraq back into the stone age is NOT the solution to the quagmire we find our nation in, nor is killing more insurgents. It looks like, they’re willing to “cut a deal” with the same “terrorists” they claim to be in Iraq fighting to defend America from.

The irony is PRICELESS.

–Cobra

interesting that saddam’s at once capitulation is seen later in the same sentence as some sort of malevolent manipulation.

Robert Kaplan has an excellent article, entitled Whether This War Was Worth It. Highly recommended for both sides of the aisle. One to reinforce what it’s all about and secondly to get real with the talking points — partisan antics only hurt us in the long run:
“The main concern of senior officials in both administrations was that, in the words of then-national security adviser Samuel “Sandy” Berger, containment was not “sustainable over the long run.” The pattern of the 1990s, “Iraqi defiance, followed by force mobilization on our part, followed by Iraqi capitulation,” had left “the international community vulnerable to manipulation by Saddam.” The longer the standoff continued, Berger warned in 1998, “the harder it will be to maintain” international support for containing Hussein.”
[SNIP]
“To quote Berger again, so long as Hussein remained “in power and in confrontation with the world,” Iraq would remain “a source of potential conflict in the region,” and, perhaps more important, “a source of inspiration for those who equate violence with power and compromise with surrender.” Whether historians judge the war favorably will depend heavily on whether post-Hussein Iraq does indeed provide a different sort of inspiration, but, again, the effort to change the direction of the region was surely worth paying some price.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/17/AR2005061701217.html

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