'If we decided to use a WMD on one of our own cities - say Cincinatti - because Obama didn't like something the newly elected Republican mayor said, then I'm pretty sure the UN would be scrambling to find a way to punish us'

False equivalence. The Kurds were not the only group Saddam used the weapons against, he also attacked the Iranians. He was vastly outnumbered by the Iranians, but Iraqis had superior technology (from their generous western donors) So first, using weapons against enemies. And second the Kurds had a history of accepting Iranian support (particularly when the Shah of Iran was a US client) and even funding from the CIA via the Shah, in an attempt to secure their independence.

The Kurds were in open revolt at the time that Saddam used chemical weapons against him, and later the no-fly zones were specifically to prevent the Iraqi air-force from bombing Kurds (and in the south Shiite Muslims) - it's not at all like Republicans in Cincinatti, and the UN does not have the ability to punish the US (nor China, Russia, the UK or France)

'We want to be the most the powerful, and keep others from being our equal, because it ensures our survival'

Largely because of this, the UN does what it's most powerful members agree to, and you Krellin, seem to know this. At least on an instinctive level.

"and the UN does not have the ability to punish the US"

DING DING DING....And the prize cupie doll goes to....everyone with the common sense to recognize the "MIGHT MAKES RIGHT" is the way of world history...all your knee-jerk, bleeding-heart ideologies be damned...

Em, you misunderstand, the US has a veto in the UN security council.

In the 60s when African nations started gaining independence and tried to get whatever they wanted in the UN general assembly, the US simply threatened to pull their funding. (which iirc was over 50% of the UNs funding at the time)

Or perhaps you understand perfectly, but can't say anything other than 'Might Makes Right', am i giving you too little credit?

No...you misunderstand. We play the UN game...we seek authorization to do what we want in order to make things go smooth...and sometimes when we don't get the authorization we want, we say "Fuck You!" to the UN and do what we want. Same as Russia. Same as China.

Any moron that thinks the UN has any meaning beyond what the *powerful* nations give it is living in a fantasy land.

Might makes right.

And understand, I am using "right" in the broadest misinterpretation of the word.

"Right" as in...we won, we get to write the history books, "right".

"right" as in...yeah we killed all the Indians conquering the west...they were a weak culture, and collectively we're all better off for it, "right"

Whenever I hear politics and fair, I'm reminded of David Bowie's Goblin King, Jareth, in Labyrinth says when Sarah complains that his rules changes aren't fair... "You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is?"

Krellin, I actually agree that "global politics/military might/etc is NOT something that is supposed to follow some "fair" set of rules, as opposed to being the chaotic endeavor of rightfully selfish nations whom seek to be on top, and stay on top, as is natural to the human condition."

But Krellin, I don't agree that "there are so many Utopian dreamers in the webdip community". I certainly am not one. I applaud your recognition of the harsh and cruel reality which you described. But since this thread is about whether or not Bush lied, I'm extending it to include whether it matters if Bush lied or not. Public opinion, fickle and illogical as it is, is all that matters to politicians, and they lie and deceive constantly to one degree or another to influence public opinion.

American public opinion readily accepts the argument that the US is good, the US is moral, therefore the US can have WMDs. American public opinion can easily be swayed (as has been seen) to believe that anybody else is immoral, and should therefore not be allowed to have WMDs. Unless of course they happen to be powerful as well as immoral. But Americans fail to see why to many people there is little difference between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq or the Hiroshima bombing or the Dresden bombing. I hear many shouting, "But 9/11 was unprovoked! Pearl Harbour was unprovoked!" Justification can be argued for any atrocity. And this whole discussion about WMDs in Iraq is just part of such an argument for justification.

I hate the 9/11 - Pearl comparison.

Pearl was a military base. The Japanese attacked our military for the most part.

9/11 was civilian airliners into primarily civilian targets.

Had AQ attacked only the Pentagon and done it with a handful of private planes loaded with flammable and explosive materials or had managed to infiltrate the military and hijack some military aircraft and went after military and/or government targets (Congress, White House, Pentagon...), I would say it was a fair comparison. But the Japanese bombed a military fleet and military airfields with military weapons of war while AQ attacked civilian targets with civilian hijacked airliners. Sorry, but AQ is a bunch of fucking cowards and the atrocity they committed is far beyond any perceived atrocity the Japanese committed with their sneak attack.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima are closer to being comparable to AQ's 9/11 attack than Pearl is.

Your arguments are valid, Draugnar.

"American public opinion readily accepts..." whatever they are told to accept. the american people, generally speaking, know more about who is wining American Idol or The Voice than they do about who is representing them, what their beliefs are, what the policy being discussed that will affect them is, etc.

There is a reason we are not a "direct democracy"...for as fucked up as things are with our elected "representatives" (cough...cough...bullshit...), imagine what a hell-hole this country would if every fart and whim of the dim-witted American people were enacted by direct votes of the majority...

maybe the reason for the apathy is because there is no direct democracy... not the other way around.

Or at least there is a contributing factor. At least in American Idol people can feel like they're making a difference, or something... The other reason would be technological limits - but these have changed dramatically in the past two president's terms.

Didn't read this thread because it looks like another shitshow. But I will say that I will take GWB's Republicans over Ted Cruz's Republicans any day of the damn week. Tea Party makes Bush look like a statesman.

"Tea Party makes Bush look like a statesman." - QFT

But, don't confuse the Tea Party with all of Republicandom.

Yes....damn those people seeking fiscal responsibility!!!! Fuck them....let's spend another trillion we don't have just to spite those stupid mother fuckers!!!

The Tea Party stands for a little more than just seeking Fiscal Responsibility, krellin. They are affiliated with some of the worst extreme right "moral majority" religious fucktards.

" I could have sworn they invaded and occupied Kuwait. Guess my memory is faulty"

Guess it is.

Kuwait was destroying Iraq economically and refused to negotiate. Kuwait would not have acted so recklessly unless they were put up to it. The invasion of Kuwait had absolutely nothing to do with any kind of threat to the United States, and the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure - including water and sewage plants - was absolutely an act of aggression. As was the murder of surrendering soldiers.

The US complaining about invading small countries is pretty hilarious, considering a year prior to the episode with Kuwait the US invaded Panama and installed a puppet government there. And Kuwait was a disgusting, fake country that had no right to exist.

far as i'm concerned tea party's reputation will never recover from the racist, islamophobic birther shit and "B. HUSSEIN Obama" bullshit. You don't forget that kind of bullshit. Truly unforgivable in 2014.

"Kuwait would not have acted so recklessly unless they were put up to it. " - Pure conjecture on Putin's part with no proof to support his premise.

"Kuwait was a disgusting, fake country that had no right to exist." - And North Korea does? Who are you to determine the worthiness of a country? God? You couldn't be cause you're a fucking militant atheist.

Of course Bush lied, the people of the USA (and most people in general) are completely retarded, and feel they must be morally justified when they perform military actions. Who gives a shit if there was no moral justification, the only thing you should worry about is whether the monetary investment was worth removing anti-USA undesirables in the region. Trying to justify killing people en masse for moral reasons is utterly ridiculous. Just man up and realise that what you are doing is fundamentally "wrong" and keep doing and stop caring, it works. Keep borrowing trillions from the rest of the world while you can, because lets be honest, how the hell do they expect they can actually collect on it while you have enough military might to scorch the earth to the point where nothing can live on it? Only thing you should be scared of is Vladimir Putin, he seems to have a pair of balls and plays the hardline approach USA has been using in foreign policy for the last 60 or so years.

"- Pure conjecture on Putin's part with no proof to support his premise."

Why would tiny Kuwait, who had hitherto always acted with deference to Iraq, all of a sudden in 1989 begin overproducing oil to drive down the price, costing Iraq billions in revenues, and also begin drilling in Rumaila, stealing oil from Iraq, and then subsequently refused to negotiate, despite repeated warnings of military action, unless they had a powerful supporter. And the fact that the Bush administration dismissed out of hand any negotiation proposal by the Iraqi government, both in August and then in December 1990, indicates that the administration was bent on destroying Iraq. As does the fact that they were already preparing major military drills vs Iraq in June of 1990, and outlined a new post-cold war strategy for dealing with regional Middle East powers, before the crisis of August 2.

Still conjecturing I see.

^There you go, excellent example by Putin of an extortion scheme to keep people you can puppet in charge of nations less powerful than you. It's been happening since medieval Europe and it's how you rise to the top and stay there. Start showing weakness and you'll be brought to you knees. Don't start putting words in my mouth and pretend Obama or the Democrats will cause the destruction of the USA, in reality it doesn't matter which is in charge, they both do it, Democrats just like to pretend they only do it if they absolutely have to, or they do it less than Republicans.

" And North Korea does? Who are you to determine the worthiness of a country?"

Korea has a long history of independent existence. The division of Korea was the design of the United States, who chose the 38th parallel as the dividing line of the country, without even consulting anybody beforehand. And anyway, the DPRK tied to rectify this division in 1950, but the UN intervened to ravage the country.

Kuwait has no history of political independence. It was part of the Basra province of Ottoman Iraq. It was only saved from annexation after it became 'independent' by a violent coup orchestrated by the United States.

"Start showing weakness and you'll be brought to you knees. "

Look around there are plenty of countries showing weakness who are provided oodles of foreign aid. Only a handful of countries have to play the survival game.

That foreign aid generally comes with strings attached. It also comes about because people like to pretend they're noble.

Iraq was in the "right" in this scenario, and look what happened to them. Imagine how it would've turned out if they actually did have WMDs they intended to use.

@foreign aid, there was a point in recent US where food aid was really important because of government subsidies to US farmers, if they dumped the production on the US market that would drop the price and hit farm incomes, so the sent it over-seas instead (with strings attached) and blew up African rural-farming economies... sad story really. (note, emergency aid and development aid are two different things, and while i'm all in favour of aid in responce to a natural disaster/famine; we've seen a tonne of development aid not work as intended)

I remember when Bush first wanted to attack Iraq and was trying to gain traction with the American people. He started after 9/11 giving the excuse that they were terrorists, no wait, they weren't, they were sponsoring Islamist terrorists, no wait, Islamist terrorists hated Iraq for being a secular state, and so on. He kept on coming up with reasons, the reasons were disclaimed, and then he would come up with a different reason. I stopped counted after seven attempts, although I believe WMD was probably nine or ten.

After the invasion was well under way, Bush came right out and said that the real reason why he invaded Iraq was because he didn't like Saddam Hussein. Something about embarrassing his father. John Cleese wrote a funny little letter about that saying since he doesn't like his neighbour, thanking the US for leading the way for making it acceptable to go ahead and kill him.