You hate Bush to the point that that is all you see. Good luck with that as a strategy for living a good life.

If refusing to leave Iraq despite the disastrous conditions to which the war has led shows “weakening resolve,” then we should get out. Also, if you are concerned about “weakening resolve,” then you should also be concerned about how much ever-rising casualties and war-related deaths, on both the U.S. and the Iraqi sides, is going to weaken that resolve even further. Especially when there is zero return for Americans’ sacrifices.

It doesn’t make sense to hammer on about anti-U.S. and anti-Western sentiments in the world, or about anti-war and anti-Bush sentiments among Americans and simultaneously support the policies that are fueling the growth of those sentiments. If the war were accomplishing anything positive, you might not see such growing anti-war and anti-Bush sentiment. But you cannot expect anyone to support a policy that is destroying American society and doing nothing to make Iraqis’ lives better.

I might also add that the Bush administration brought all these anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-U.S. sentiments on itself by unilaterally invading a country that was no threat to the U.S. against popular opinion here in the U.S. (before the war actually started, large percentages of Americans opposed going to war without U.N. authorization or the support of our traditional allies). You can fume all you like about people who oppose the war, the occupation, and the Bush administration’s policies, but it’s utterly unreasonable and illogical to expect the rest of the world (which includes war opponents in the U.S., like me, because I actually consider myself part of the world) to support Bush and his war when he completely ignored and rode roughshod over the world’s opposition to invading Iraq — even to the point of saying he didn’t CARE what anyone else thought. If he doesn’t what Americans think, or what his Western allies think, it’s pretty nervy of people like you to say we should fall into place and go with the program.

In other words, *what did you expect*?

As for Libya, there is very little reason to conclude that Libya gave up its WMD program because of the Iraq invasion. Libya had been involved in secret negotiations with the Clinton administration since 1999. I suggest you read this article on the Brookings Institution’s website — originally published in The Financial Times.

The big peace and order the US brought to Iraq resulted in people leaving the country in a steady flow, escaping the worsening situation.

The US retaliated, put a stop to the shooting at their aircraft and destroyed a country in the process, while yelling “Mission Accomplished”.

Now, if I were a terrorist I would say: Hey, these guys are so incomepetent, we can’t loose, they piss off people enough to join us.

They are wating for the last helicopter.

“They see weakness and they take the initiative”?

That’s a very striking comment. Wasn’t the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein supposed to show the “psychotic regimes” that the U.S. was strong, not weak? That’s the Bush admin’s entire rationale for staying in Iraq: If we leave, the “terrorists will see that we are weak.”

If the “psychotic regimes” are “seeing weakness” after regime change and after three years of war and occupation, then doesn’t that indicate there is something wrong with the current policy?

We either stand against this or we all fall. Permanently and with no appeal.

It’s so easy to say this is all Bush’s doing, but there are more hands in it than that.

I actually would not disagree with your last sentence, but saying that U.S. policy toward Iraq has developed over many years and has many authors is not the same thing as saying, or implying, that George W. Bush somehow “carried out” a Clinton administration policy. Bush was not a helpless puppet; he had a choice. Bush is not solely responsible for U.S. policy toward Iraq and in the Middle East (although, that said, many of the key players, like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Rice, have served in several administrations, and the policy has been developed by a relatively small group of people, albeit not all in GWB’s administration); however, Bush IS responsible for the decision to invade Iraq for the purpose of overthrowing Saddam Hussein, and he is responsible (along with others in his admin) for the disastrous decisions that were made in the weeks and months after the coup. These things simply *cannot* be blamed on Clinton or other past administrations. Different choices could have been made. War and regime change were not the only options. Bush is responsible for making the choices he made, and if, as a result of our involvement in Iraq, other more serious and real threats to our safety were ignored, Bush is responsible for that. It’s one thing to humbly ask for the world’s help in handling a global crisis we cannot handle all by ourselves; it’s quite another thing to BLAME the rest of the world for not being able to solve a problem that the U.S. helped to create.

It’s so easy to say this is all Bush’s doing, but there are more hands in it than that.

And there is real evil in the world, and it is not the US.

You are 100 percent right about Congress. They’re spineless jellyfish (and yes, I know that’s redundant).

I don’t know what is more astounding: that you would write this, or that you might actually believe it. William Jefferson Clinton did not invade Iraq in March 2003. William Jefferson Clinton did not overthrow Saddam Hussein, and no amount of arguing or quoting will change the fact that William Jefferson Clinton, whatever you imagine his policies on Iraq to have been, did not hold a gun to George W. Bush’s head and force him to invade Iraq, overthrow Hussein, and install a military occupation. There is so much contradictory position-taking, muddy and delusional thinking, and just plain ignorance on the right about the war against Iraq that if it were not impossible to deny, I would simply find myself unable to believe it. You guys will say *anything,* ANYTHING, no matter how ludicrous it is, no matter how stupid it makes you look, to avoid taking personal responsibility for the consequences of the policies you support, IF those consequences are negative.

And as for how we got to Iraq from Mumbai, I can answer that question: We got to Iraq from Mumbai when Gaius wrote “The world really needs to pull together here or be ready for increasing chaos. Wake up, folks.” about the Mumbai bombings — implying that “the world” (which doesn’t include the U.S.) was responsible for solving the “increasing chaos” that is a direct result of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.

You might also question the Congress of the US about why they validated that policy.

That the US want to kick ass, cause he had been shot at, that is a different thing,that I can accept, as it behaves like a ocnquering, occupying force, like the Soviet’s did after WWII.

This thread has gone far enough off track as it is. The war is what it is, arguing about it’s justification now is flogging a dead horse.

By the way, I know it’s the left’s favorite way to do things, Kathy, but I promise you, more words to not make it clearer. Short and to the point is much more effective.

Really. It’s astonishing to me that such high-tech, very deadly missiles did not hit even one aircraft over a period of 12 years.

Did you happen to notice the dates on many of the justifications? They were not from the Bush administration. They were from the Clinton administration.

Wait. You mean this congressional resolution you linked to is from the *Clinton* administration? It was Bill Clinton who told Congress to authorize the March 2003 invasion of Iraq?

Violation of the UN ceasefire resolution alone was adequate reason, by all rules of war, to resume hostilities.

All right. In that case, if violating the UN ceasefire was adequate reason by itself to invade Iraq, start a war against Iraq, overthrow Iraq’s leader, and initiate an indefinite military occupation, then logically you would have to agree that the U.S. is solely responsible for the consequences — which in this case is a raging insurgency, uncontrolled terror and chaos, an incipient or actual civil war, and a global terrorist ripple effect. You cannot logically or morally hold up anti-aircraft attacks that fail to hit a single aircraft over a period of TWELVE YEARS as a reason for renewed war and then ask the rest of the world to deal with the fallout. This was a choice the U.S. made, Gaius. America was not threatened. The U.S. is personally responsible for the consequences. The U.S. stood essentially alone to invade Iraq, despite global opposition; the U.S. should stand essentially alone to find the solution to the consequences.

I’m also curious to know, if firing antiaircraft missiles that were incapable of reaching their targets was by itself a reason for invading Iraq, even without all the other 22 reasons given in the resolution, then why were 22 other reasons given, and why didn’t the resolution state that any one of these reasons justify war? It strikes me that the entire reason for giving almost two dozen justifications for the invasion was because the case for invasion was very weak, and the President (through Congress) was trying to pad it. Why list 23 justifications if one sufficed?