Received this in my email. Gosh, and they have the nerve to call Kerry a flip-flopper? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Mr. Bush, I am so confused. Where exactly do you stand on the issue of Iraq? You, your Dad, Rummy, Condi, Colin, and Wolfie -- you have all changed your minds so many times, I am out of breath just trying to keep up with you! Which of these 10 positions that you, your family and your cabinet have taken over the years represents your CURRENT thinking: 1983-88: WE LOVE SADDAM. On December 19, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld was sent by your dad and Mr. Reagan to go and have a friendly meeting with Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq. Rummy looked so happy in the picture. Just twelve days after this visit, Saddam gassed thousands of Iranian troops. Your dad and Rummy seemed pretty happy with the results because The Donald R. went back to have another chummy hang-out with Saddams right-hand man, Tariq Aziz, just four months later. All of this resulted in the U.S. providing credits and loans to Iraq that enabled Saddam to buy billions of dollars worth of weapons and chemical agents. The Washington Post reported that your dad and Reagan let it be known to their Arab allies that the Reagan/Bush administration wanted Iraq to win its war with Iran and anyone who helped Saddam accomplish this was a friend of ours. 1990: WE HATE SADDAM. In 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, your dad and his defense secretary, Dick Cheney, decided they didn't like Saddam anymore so they attacked Iraq and returned Kuwait to its rightful dictators. 1991: WE WANT SADDAM TO LIVE. After the war, your dad and Cheney and Colin Powell told the Shiites to rise up against Saddam and we would support them. So they rose up. But then we changed our minds. When the Shiites rose up against Saddam, the Bush inner circle changed its mind and decided NOT to help the Shiites. Thus, they were massacred by Saddam. 1998: WE WANT SADDAM TO DIE. In 1998, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others, as part of the Project for the New American Century, wrote an open letter to President Clinton insisting he invade and topple Saddam Hussein. 2000: WE DON'T BELIEVE IN WAR AND NATION BUILDING. Just three years later, during your debate with Al Gore in the 2000 election, when asked by the moderator Jim Lehrer where you stood when it came to using force for regime change, you turned out to be a downright pacifist: I--I would take the use of force very seriously. I would be guarded in my approach. I don't think we can be all things to all people in the world. I think we've got to be very careful when we commit our troops. The vice president [Al Gore] and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I--I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place. And so I take my--I take my--my responsibility seriously. --October 3, 2000 2001 (early): WE DON'T BELIEVE SADDAM IS A THREAT. When you took office in 2001, you sent your Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and your National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, in front of the cameras to assure the American people they need not worry about Saddam Hussein. Here is what they said: Powell: We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they have directed that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was 10 years ago when we began it. And frankly, they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. --February 24, 2001 Rice: But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt. --July 29, 2001 2001 (late): WE BELIEVE SADDAM IS GOING TO KILL US! Just a few months later, in the hours and days after the 9/11 tragedy, you had no interest in going after Osama bin Laden. You wanted only to bomb Iraq and kill Saddam and you then told all of America we were under imminent threat because weapons of mass destruction were coming our way. You led the American people to believe that Saddam had something to do with Osama and 9/11. Without the UN's sanction, you broke international law and invaded Iraq. 2003: WE DONT BELIEVE SADDAM IS GOING TO KILL US. After no WMDs were found, you changed your mind about why you said we needed to invade, coming up with a brand new after-the-fact reason -- we started this war so we could have regime change, liberate Iraq and give the Iraqis democracy! 2003: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Yes, everyone saw you say it -- in costume, no less! 2004: OOPS. MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED! Now you call the Iraq invasion a "catastrophic success." That's what you called it this month. Over a thousand U.S. soldiers have died, Iraq is in a state of total chaos where no one is safe, and you have no clue how to get us out of there. Mr. Bush, please tell us -- when will you change your mind again? I know you hate the words "flip" and "flop," so I won't use them both on you. In fact, I'll use just one: Flop. That is what you are. A huge, colossal flop. The war is a flop, your advisors and the "intelligence" they gave you is a flop, and now we are all a flop to the rest of the world. Flop. Flop. Flop. And you have the audacity to criticize John Kerry with what you call the "many positions" he has taken on Iraq. By my count, he has taken only one: He believed you. That was his position. You told him and the rest of congress that Saddam had WMDs. So he -- and the vast majority of Americans, even those who didn't vote for you -- believed you. You see, Americans, like John Kerry, want to live in a country where they can believe their president. That was the one, single position John Kerry took. He didn't support the war, he supported YOU. And YOU let him and this great country down. And that is why tens of millions can't wait to get to the polls on Election Day -- to remove a major, catastrophic flop from our dear, beloved White House -- to stop all the flipping you and your men have done, flipping us and the rest of the world off. We can't take another minute of it. Yours, Michael Moore
Bush apparently deceived Britain, France, Russia, Germany, etc. since they all believed that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons. Furthermore, Kerry has bounced all over the place concerning Iraq in just the past year. I also don't think that Moore has a leg to stand on when it comes to flip flopping. He blasted NATO's campaign against the thug Milosevic, then he backed its leader Wesley Clark for president.
Funny I don't see any links in your response. You know links to articles, what they call corroburating evidence to your opinion? Moore's article had lots of them. You gonna bring something to the table of debate? Or you gonna keep spouting republican one-liners?
What specifically are you disputing, the international consensus regarding Saddam's WMD or Kerry's very recent incoherence on Iraq?
Bacchus, Let me try this again. Why don't you tell me which statement(s) in my earlier post you would like to see corroborated? Do you deny that many other world leaders believed that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons before the US invasion? or Do you deny that Kerry has repeatedly contradicted himself on Iraq throughout his presidential campaign?
Firstly, Kerry voted to give Bush the 'AUTHORITY' to use force. This is not a vote to go to war. It was a vote that gave Bush the authority he needed to start the planning, to get all his ducks in order so to speak, allies, where the money was going to come from ect. Then, when Bush exploited this authority by going ahead without UN support, without having our troops properly equiped, without allowing the UN inspectors to complete their job, without proof of WMD and that Saddam was an immediate threat to the US, Kerry started to balk, as well he should have. He DID vote against the $87 billon that was proposed by Bush for "troops". However, what you don't hear with regard to this is WHY. He voted against it because he opposed WHERE the money was coming from. It would greatly drive up the already out of control deficit. He wanted the money to come from cutbacks in taxes to those making over $400,000 a year. And, not all of that $87 billion was going for the troops. A large portion of it was going to intelligence operations. Besides, why were the troops not properly equiped BEFORE they were sent to war??? http://factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=155#
Yet Kerry recently said he would have still voted for this resolution even if he knew there were no WMD. Actually, I think he wanted this money to be a loan. Saddling a war-torn nation with debt is not a good idea, as post-WWI Germany should have taught us. Also, during the Democratic primaries, Kerry declared that anyone who denied that the world was safer with Saddam in custody is unfit for the presidency. Now he says that invading Iraq has made us less secure.
Which resolution are you referring to here? The one that would have given Bush the authority to use force paid for by eliminating the tax cuts to those making over $400,000, which Kerry voted for, or the one that passed that had no real plans for where the money was coming from? And yes, it much better to saddle US with the debt of this war isn't it? Everyone, including Kerry, believes that the wrold is a safer place with Saddam in jail. When he said that invading Iraq has made us less secure this is not what he meant. He clearly stated what he meant if you would have listened. He meant that by focusing all are attention on Iraq,we have dropped the ball on the real terrorist threat, Osama. Terrorist are now being recruited by the thousands by Osama and others like him. They are pouring over the borders of Iraq, as well as other countries. They are growing like flies on shit and all Bush seems to care about is Iraq. So, yes, I would have to agree that we HAVE become less secure since invading Iraq.
I was referring to the resolution authorizing military action against Iraq. Again, Kerry said recently that he would have voted the same way knowing everything we know today. As opposed to Iraq, yes. So capturing Saddam was a great accomplishment, but the invasion that made this possible was a terrible thing? Typical Kerry gymnastics. The fact is that Kerry trashed Dean's antiwar stance during the primary, and now he's parroting it. Maybe they're just being drawn out of the woodwork and fighting us in Iraq, instead of attacking us here.
That is absolute bullshit. Are you actually trying to say that if we wern't in Iraq that they would be doing all that to us here?? And you chastise freesue for what you call "typical Kerry gymnastics" yet a few lines later spout the typical pro-war, conservative rhetoric.
Not necessarily. I'm just disputing that the number of Islamic terrorists has "grown like flies" because of the Iraq war. It seems more likely that they're just gravitating there.
The amount of terrorists who hate the USA has always continued to grow, even before the Iraq war. The Iraq war has escalated the process, gave them even MORE motive to join up with the terrorist groups. The Iraq war is a great recruitment tool for Osama and others like him. They hated us before the war, and they hate us even more since the war. Thus, as I said, they are growing like flies. And, that hatred is surpassed by nothing except maybe their hatred for Bush. Remember all those marvelous pictures prior to the war of violent protests everywhere in Europe by the islamic nations, and others, where this hatred was shown? Burning US flags, burning Bush "dummies" (hehe)...I recall that it really bothered me. And all we did was to inflame that hatred and anger even more. That hatred is raging almost out of control and all Bush is doing is pouring more fuel on the fire.
