Wow. Seriously, I don't think you're leveling me which is truly scary.

The *fact* is that GWB ran on a non-interventionist policy in 2000 and if you believe Paul O'Neil, he was planning regime change in Iraq from his first day in office. I think it's fair to point out this hypocrisy.

Regime change was the policy of Clinton!

Yep, it shows on ignorant (or dishonest) he was, being that OBL declared Fatwah on America before GWB declared he was running for president.

And anytime a neocon uses 9/11 to justify invading Iraq "is el oh el" as you like to put it.

Don't worry, there's more than enough terrible presidents to go around.

ummm.... never said that, but i think 9/11 could be used to justify invading Afghanistan fo sho, and thereby ruining his campaign promises of a humble policy

The cause of Germany's rise was the VT, not isolationism. It was a classic case of blowback.

OK, if you don't support that then forget I said it. I thought you were using 9/11 to justify an intervention (more then militarily, also political) happy foreign policy on nations that didn't have to do with 9/11, such as Iraq.

it was all explained in his secret newsletters.

more of its a side point... this threads about GWB's change in policy rememba (lol)? Afghanistan came first and I don't really feel like having a flame war over this point right now

lol

Also, I don't think I made this clear in my first response.

Bush was very for working against regime change in Iraq pre-911. However, he wasn't for using anything other than sanctions. This had been our policy since 91 and I wouldn't consider it to be "non-humble"

I got it right from the OP:
This is the rumor he's trying to figure out the truth to, not anything about Afghanastan.

MODERATOR: Saddam Hussein, you mean, get him out of there?

BUSH: I would like to, of course, and I presume this administration would as well. We don't know -- there are no inspectors now in Iraq, the coalition that was in place isn't as strong as it used to be. He is a danger. We don't want him fishing in troubled waters in the Middle East. And it's going to be hard, it's going to be important to rebuild that coalition to keep the pressure on him.

http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000b.html

This was the policy towards Iraq and Saddam that he ran on in 2000. I'm not sure I see the hypocrisy here unless you're talking about nation building which he did criticize Clinton/Gore for doing.

Yea, he ran on a truly "non-interventionist" foreign policy.

"COPING WITH ROGUE REGIMES AS HISTORY MARCHES toward markets and democracy, some states have been left by the side of the road. Iraq is the prototype. Saddam Hussein's regime is isolated, his conventional military power has been severely weakened, his people live in poverty and terror, and he has no useful place in international politics. He is therefore determined to develop wMD. Nothing will change until Saddam is gone, so the United States must mobilize whatever resources it can, including support from his opposition, -to remove him." -- Condoleeza Rice, one of GWB's foreign policy advisors.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/200001...-interest.html

Nas-

Its already been shown the I've misunderstood the OP. As it stands, it pisses me off more than what I thought it was tbh.

the bold is obv false and annoying to even bring it up

Sorry, I missed it the first time.



You couldn't say it's obv false, it's probably unlikely, but with Blackwater's connection to the religious right, Cheney's connection to Halliburton, and the racket that is war profiteering and arms dealing present in the US, I wouldn't doubt it for a second.

well nas, people have been trying to show that war profiteering has been driving america to war since before vietnam without ever proving their case, so I'd be surprised if this time they suddenly did.

The documentary "Why we fight" lays out the case very well imo. Can you at least concede that the owner of Blackwater (a man that bankrolled the rise of the religious right in this country and definitely has the ear of the Bush Administration and a large amount of christians in America) sees going to go to war as a good thing for their business? Can you also concede that people in the arms business (who have the ear of much of Washington) also see going to war as a good thing?

When these powerful people see going to war as good for them, and then we end up going to war on what turns out not to justifiable evidence, what other reasonable alternative is there?

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

The US would still spend more on its defense budget than the rest of the world combined even if we weren't in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That we have idiotic leaders that make decisions based on circumstantial and incomplete evidence?

Also, you forgot "zionists" in the list of groups that want war.

Nas-

1.) He may or may not see going to war as a good thing.
2.) Simply because someone benefits from a war doesn't mean they caused it.

Not that obviously for some:
* July 1996: Richard Perle authors a paper “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”. The plan starts with the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

* January 1998: PNAC sends a letter to President Bill Clinton calling for war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein because he is a hazard to the world’s oil supplies. It calls for the US to go it alone and says the US should not be crippled by the UN. Ten of the 18 signatories end up in George W. Bush’s first administration.

* September 2000: “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” is published by PNAC. For example, the document states … “the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein”. The same report says the desired changes will take a long time, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

* January 30, 2001: First National Security Council meeting is held ten days after Bush’s inauguration. It was focused on Iraq, including finding a way to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

* February 1, 2001: Second National Security Council meeting in President Bush’s Administration is held and regime change in Iraq is a central topic. Rumsfeld talks in depth about what a post-Saddam Iraq would be like. Memo titled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq” is discussed.

* February 2001: Documents planning regime change for Iraq in the Bush Administration are created, including one titled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq” and another “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Contracts.”

* February 2001 – According to reporter Greg Palast: “The State Department's Pam Quanrud organizes a secret confab in California to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam. US oil industry advisor Falah Aljibury and others are asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator. On BBC Television's Newsnight, Aljibury himself explained, ‘It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime.’”

* March 2001 – Palast also reports that Vice-President Dick Cheney meets with oil company executives and reviews oil field maps of Iraq.

* April 30, 2001: First Deputies Meeting on terrorism is finally held in the Bush Administration. The discussion was focused on Iraq, not UBL or al-Qaeda!

* April 2001: A report titled Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century commissioned by the Council on Foreign Relations and former US Secretary of State James Baker is submitted to Vice President Cheney. It argues that Iraq should be overthrown so that we can control its oil.

* September 4, 2001 – Bush cabinet members meet to discuss terrorism for only the second time. Neither Bush nor Cheney is there … CIA Director George Tenet stresses al-Qaeda, Secretary of State Colin Powell outlines a plan to pressure Pakistan to stop supporting them, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is only interested in Iraq.

* September 12, 2001 – Officials discuss attacking Iraq … Rumsfeld says Iraq should be part of the first round of the war on terrorism and that Iraq has better targets than Afghanistan …
In the early morning hours of 9/12, the day after the attacks, Clarke walked into a White House meeting expecting to talk about “what the next attacks could be, what our vulnerabilities were, what we could do about them in the short term.” Instead, he “walked into a series of discussions about Iraq.” According to Clarke, he had heard from friends in the Pentagon that word was we would be invading Iraq some time in 2002! Clarke claims that on 9/12, Paul Wolfowitz insisted the attacks were too coordinated to have been conducted without a state sponsor, and that Iraq had to be involved. In fact, Wolfowitz made the same argument in April 2001 at the first Bush Administration Deputies meeting on terrorism, saying that the first attack on the World Trade Center also was assisted by Iraq. By that afternoon, according to Clarke, Donald Rumsfeld also was talking about Iraq. Rumsfeld said there were no decent targets in Afghanistan and that Iraq had better targets. President Bush said we needed to change the government of Iraq, not just bomb it!

Etc. With timeline and links to prove.
by M. B. Robinson, PhD, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, Appalachian State University

I'd say bold on top is not that obv false, but i'd agree it is annoying.

Anyone who paid attention to Bush in his election race knew that he placed importance on regime change. Look at my post above where during the presidential campaign Condi, who was his foreign policy adviser at the time, came out and said they wanted to get rid of Saddam.

But ikestoys is talking about occupying Iraq, hence the part he quoted/bolded, not just regime change.

Anyone who has read either PNAC or Zbigniew Brezinski's The Grand Chessboard would realise that the current "crusades" are a planned foreign policy campaign that was put in place well before 9/11.

Whether 9/11 was a "false flag" operation used to speed up this agenda is up to everybody to decide on their own.

You should at least mention the zionists and the New World Order and link people to loose change, otherwise you just aren't providing people with all the facts.

ni han