Somebody please refresh my memory of the time between 9/11 and Iraq

[Stinky The Clown]

I'm talking, really, about the need for the IWR vote.

As I recall, these are the broad facts:

1 - 9/11 happened. No Iraqis participated.

2 - Iraqi ties were alleged by bushco, but have been soundly debunked, and were shakey on their face, even back then.

3 - It was common knowledge that the Taliban, in Afghanistan, was a verifiable source and supporter of terrorists, particularly those associated with the attack.

4 - There was near-universal support for going into Afghanistan.

The next thing we know, idiot son is swinging his dick at Saddam, the UN gets all in a lather, inspectors inspect, diplomats diplome, generals plan, posturers posture, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Just why did *any* one see a need to go into Iraq when we did. Saddam was an asshole then and he's an asshole now. But so far as I know, assholery is not a crime, its a condition.

Was the infamous state of the union speech lay out all the alleged reasons there were?

How did we get to a point that we even needed to debate going in? I don't recall, with any detail, how we went from 9/11 to a pressing need to unseat a two-bit bad guy. Okay ... maybe a four-bit - or even a six-bit bad guy - but a guy who was no threat to us.

[lcordero2]

1. does this help?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2608713.stm

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Oh I think we all know those kinds of reasons ........ my question ......

Is why any one in Congress might have seen a reason to even consider the IWR. I recall that we went from inavding Afghanistan to vtoing for the IWR. I never understood ***why*** we had to vote for it.

[seabeyond]

16. it was right before the 2002 election and repugs had the dems

by the balls. we all remember. we couldnt say a thing about bush. dena was the first to ever speak out against bush and that was well after the war started

you have to go back to the time. to sit in today and say wtf isnt a reality based perception. there were a lot of things going on

we didnt know yet bush was the mother fuckin liar we know today. we just thought he was a liar

there werent inspectors in and saddam was fuckin around. it was bush putting military on the border that got the inspectors back in

saddam was playing the inspection pretending like he had some, my guess, peoples guess, he didnt want other countries to know he had none, ergo couldnt protect himself

but the real bitch in that vote, they rushed it right before the 2002 election. already knew dems were going to lose seats

[havocmom]

2. "assholery is not a crime"... pity, that, or we could arrest the junta

in its entirity.

The whole campaign to invade was psy-ops on a massive scale and the media was in there, sleeves rolled up, doing what the junta wanted to get its war on.

Sadly, too much of the US population does not consider democracy to ba a participatory thing and had other issues on its collective mind... off to the mall... pResident said I should shop, tra-la tra-la....

The people had become way too complacent and so evil men came to power. The people did not want to be bothered with protecting freedom, they thought that was for 'the troops' to do somewhere far away. Too many just don't do their duty as citizens. They just go along with what they are told. If there are problems, somebody will take care of it.

In a working democracy, SOMEBODY is each and every one of us. Evidently, nobody teaches civics anymore.

[babylonsister]

4. I think Colin Powell, armed with the lies his bosses fed him,

was the turning point. His speech to the UN regarding WMD, and the pictures that supposedly proved their discovery, got the majority in a tither. No one yet knew he was also a pawn in their game.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. Yup, I know all that, too, but pretty much that same case .....

could have been made against Iran and North Korea at the same time.

Again, what was it about those weeks and months that caused the whole damned country - and the whole damned congress - to think this was an urgent matter?

True enough, a few Dems voted against it, but no one just stood up and said it was all bullshit.

Were there weapons of mass deluision unleashed on us?

And it wasn't just in the US. The whole damned world was engaged in it. Even the vilified France and Germany engaged in what appeared to be serious debate.

Where was the voice of reason? Where was the call of bullshit.

**WE** knew it was bullshit. And we're hardly a braintrust.

NO ONE called this what it was ... bullshit.

And that's my question. Why did anyone see the need to even vote on a matter of bullshit?

[babylonsister]

6. Because they filled everyone with the terra mantra, and

we were all gonna die if they didn't do something! Don't forget the yellowcake uranium in...Niger. I for one believed the shit they were selling because our government couldn't, nay, wouldn't lie about such a huge issue. Boy, was I wrong. I think fear of the possibility that it could be so swayed everyone.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. Don't you think its likely that senators had access to more info than us?

Admittedly, if they were being lied to, then they might not have seen much more than we did. But I find that hard to believe. It strikes me that between the senators themselves, and their staffers, somebody ***must** have smelled the dead rat.

While it may be politically expedient to say, in a campaign, 'I voted for the IWR because I was lied to', can we really believe that? **Should** we really believe that?

[babylonsister]

11. Not necessarily. If Powell could be duped, and he

has insinuated that, why not the senators?

[Stinky The Clown]

13. He has reason to insinuate that. My internal jury is very much out on him

In his defense, it is said he was one of very, very few who at loeast called bullshit (literally) to at least part of the pretext.

But whore and loyalist that he is, he went and did his act anyhow.

[LynnTheDem]

18. Many US govt. DID KNOW it was BULLSHIT and SAID SO.

Go read what Denis Kucinich said. Go read what Republican Ron Paul read out on the floor of Congress September 2002. ("Is It Not True?").

THEY KNEW IT WAS BULLSHIT.

[rzemanfl]

8. People were pissed about 9/11 and wanted to kick some ass.

Lots of people still remembered Stevenson at the U.N. and equated Powell's speech with that. That's my read on it.

[Stinky The Clown]

9. We **were** kicking ass ... the right ass .... Taliban ass .......

Again, why did not one senator or congressman call bullshit?

(Or, if one did call bullshit, I missed it ... but kudos to any who did.)

[rzemanfl]

10. That was outsourced to warlords who let Bin Laden escape. I

wonder what would have happened if the U.S. had nuked Tora Bora into a pile of glowing rocks and then declared the "War on Terror" over with?

[Stinky The Clown]

12. The outsourcing was concurrent with the run up to the IWR vote

and shoudl have been another clue to our elected representatives in congress.

Again I ask ... why did no one call bullshit?

[LynnTheDem]

19. Several did. Including repubs.

Thank your "msm" for not bothering to give equal air time;
LESS THAN 15% AIR-TIME GIVEN to anti-Iraq-invasionists, versus 85% AIR-TIME FOR WARMONGERS.

[Kenneth ken]

14. truth or history?

truth: PNAC wanted to conquer Iraq since about 1997 or 1998, so that's the most basic and real reason for Iraq - to strengthen US hegemony and world domination by controlling the major oil resources, which of course , drive the world as it currently exists.

history: In the 2002 SOTU speech, Bush put Iraq forward (more prominently than his other axis-of-evil nations) to start rallying public opinion for invasion:

" Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction.

Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September 11, but we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic. "

link

From that point up to actual invasion, the Bush* maladministration tried to make the case, and ramp up fear. The IWR points to UN resolutions that Iraq was either actually or supposedly not in compliance with, so the maladministration tried to use those to justify the invasion.

I think the vote on IWR was predicated on the maladministration going to the UN and trying to get inspectors to validate the WMD claims before invading. Once the inspectors were in and not finding anything, the maladministration started saying the WMDs were hidden, inspectors were being lied to etc. - then they kind of had to hurry and invade before the lie was totally exposed.

Whit House draft of IWR

one more edit:
The IWR did commit the Bush* maladministration to working with the UN and trying for diplomatic resolution befor einvasion:

"Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the United States to `work with the United Nations Security Council to meet our common challenge' posed by Iraq and to `work for the necessary resolutions,' while also making clear that `the Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable'; ..."

last link

I think in short, that the IWR was because people were calling bullshit on maladministration plans to invade.

did that help?

[npincus]

15. The Enron sotry broke over the summer and as soon as it did

B*sh started blabbering about Iraq... that's when I knew we were going to start this war. After B*sh stole the election in 2000, I used to call him dangerously stupid or a dangerous idiot (interchangeable). Well, I never could have guessed he would be so deadly stupid.

[LynnTheDem]

17. Your #4 is wrong; actually the majority of the world OPPOSED attacking

Afghanistan. Thank your "mainstream media" for never having bothered to point that fact out to Americans.

[wolfman23510]

20. Iraq and 9/11 have nothing to do with one another

You are preaching to the choir. However, the war debate is over. We need to focus on human suffering in this country. Katrina in particular is a hotbutton issue.