North Korea takes another step forward

[The Holy Roller]

It's getting ass-raped by Republicans....or will be soon.

 

[Azazello1313]

Blue Dog Democrat

 

eh, not really the angle I was getting at. it's just the trademark of an artist named george rodrigue, I have a couple of the new orleans jazz fest posters he designed hanging in my house. and the expression of his blue dog always kind of reminds me of my own dog, bix.

[Ursa Majoris]

eh, not really the angle I was getting at. it's just the trademark of an artist named george rodrigue, I have a couple of the new orleans jazz fest posters he designed hanging in my house. and the expression of his blue dog always kind of reminds me of my own dog, bix.

It's more a fox than a dog anyway.

[Yukon Cornelius]

Easier than Iraqi WMDs.

[detlef]

I assume you're just trying to be glib here, but there is literally NO ONE this side of h8tank who seriously advocated military action against NK in 2003 (or since, really).

You're right, nobody was. Mind you, nobody should have been advocating going into Iraq either, but we conveniently had faulty intel on a place that W just happened to want to go into. Then it became all about taking out an evil-doer who was ass-raping his people and may, possibly, someday, have nukes. Which, of course, is what we were beginning to get fed with Iran. And something that could just as easily be said about N Korea.

 

My point was simply that N Korea was there all along and dude is at least as sick and twisted as either Hussein or bozo from Iran. Yet, "nobody this side of H8tank" would even dream of suggesting we do something as crazy as take him out. So what does that say about our decision to go into Iraq or make a strong play to go into Iran as well?

[Azazello1313]

Mind you, nobody should have been advocating going into Iraq either, but we conveniently had faulty intel on a place that W just happened to want to go into.

 

even more conveniently, we somehow, magically, had that faulty intel way before W was anywhere close to the oval office.

[detlef]

even more conveniently, we somehow, magically, had that faulty intel way before W was anywhere close to the oval office.

Which is just crazy because nobody with any political cache who could somehow profit from an extended campaign in Iraq ever existed prior to W taking office in 2001.

 

Provided one is of the opinion that we were lied to in order to start a war that happened to fight nicely into both W's political agenda, profit his cronies, simply pointing out that the faulty intelligence was in place prior to his election doesn't actually dismiss this theory. Especially when the 2000 election wasn't exactly without controversy.

[Savage Beatings]

Which is just crazy because nobody with any political cache who could somehow profit from an extended campaign in Iraq ever existed prior to W taking office in 2001.

 

Provided one is of the opinion that we were lied to in order to start a war that happened to fight nicely into both W's political agenda, profit his cronies, simply pointing out that the faulty intelligence was in place prior to his election doesn't actually dismiss this theory. Especially when the 2000 election wasn't exactly without controversy.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't buy the whole "we were lied to in order to start a way in Iraq" crap. If you want to say that there was faulty intelligence and that the Administration is responsible for getting it wrong, that's one thing... but show any miniscule shred of evidence that George W Bush purposely convinced the Intelligence community to fake evidence and then present that faked evidence to the Congress that voted unanimously for the war in order to advance some personal agenda of his. And keep in mind that if you CAN find any evidence to support that bogus theory, then that means that W was an evil genuius and that every Republican and Democrat politician in Congress was completely and totally incompetent for not exposing that evidence before they voted for the war, or even any time since then.

[bushwacked]

Congress that voted unanimously for the war in order to advance some personal agenda of his.

 

What are you talking about here?

 

1 - The Iraq War Resolution authorized the Pres to use armed forces as deemed necessary and appropriate and to equate it to a declaration of war is either disingenuous or just plain lacking in accuracy.

 

2- The resolution passed 297-133 in the House and 77-23 in the Senate.

 

And to the point, there was much blame to around on intelligence failures above and beyond the administration, but the Senate report came to the conclusion that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence and solicited intelligence to substantiate” its public claim in to support military action.

 

Their was some shady pre-Iraqi war swindling going in inside the Bush administration, it's not a debate, there is evidence, it happened.

Edited February 6, 2010 by bushwacked

[Azazello1313]

Which is just crazy because nobody with any political cache who could somehow profit from an extended campaign in Iraq ever existed prior to W taking office in 2001.

 

Provided one is of the opinion that we were lied to in order to start a war that happened to fight nicely into both W's political agenda, profit his cronies, simply pointing out that the faulty intelligence was in place prior to his election doesn't actually dismiss this theory. Especially when the 2000 election wasn't exactly without controversy.

 

oh so now we're into full blown michael moore territory...

 

so the same evil conspiracy planted fake intelligence going back to 1990, convinced bill clinton and his whole administration when they were in charge of everything, convinced a significant portion of the democratic congressional caucus, convinced the UK's labour gov't, australia, spain, japan, etc., all of this long before their manchurian candidate was even in power....AND then they rigged the 2000 election so that it would magically come down to a few hanging chads in florida so that they could work their conspiratorial magic so that their dream of taking over iraq could finally come to fruition. then obviously, they would have had to orchestrate 9/11 as well but at this point in the conspiratorial tale that pretty much goes without saying.

 

the other alternative is that saddam defied 12 years of UN sanctions to make it look like he had and would use WMD -- presumably to try and somehow scare iran, and the kurdish and shia factions in his own country.

 

have you ever heard of occam's razor?

Edited February 6, 2010 by Azazello1313

[detlef]

oh so now we're into full blown michael moore territory...

 

so the same evil conspiracy planted fake intelligence going back to 1990, convinced bill clinton and his whole administration when they were in charge of everything, convinced a significant portion of the democratic congressional caucus, convinced the UK's labour gov't, australia, spain, japan, etc., all of this long before their manchurian candidate was even in power....AND then they rigged the 2000 election so that it would magically come down to a few hanging chads in florida so that they could work their conspiratorial magic so that their dream of taking over iraq could finally come to fruition. then obviously, they would have had to orchestrate 9/11 as well but at this point in the conspiratorial tale that pretty much goes without saying.

 

the other alternative is that saddam defied 12 years of UN sanctions to make it look like he had and would use WMD -- presumably to try and somehow scare iran, and the kurdish and shia factions in his own country.

 

have you ever heard of occam's razor?

OK, I'll give you the 2000 election deal. To a degree. I'm not implying that '03 was the culmination of a 13 year old plot set forth then. Rather that there are those who could certainly profit from that campaign (hell, you guys are claiming the whole global warming deal is all a sham to profit green businesses, so don't act like it's just us lefties with the tin hats on) and those who could stand to profit likely have some pull.

 

So, it would be pretty handy to have some evidence laying around that pointed to reasons why they should take out a guy like Saddam. This doesn't mean they hatched W or even 9/11. Rather that when 9/11 happened, they seized the opportunity to go forward. Here you had a POTUS sympathetic to the cause, an attack on our country, and a congress fearful that anything short of blind allegiance in this time of tragedy would be seen as un-American.

 

Unless you make a point of blowing it out of proportion, it's not entirely unbelievable.

[JoJoTheWebToedBoy]

 

Man, ursa knows more about the shrub doctrine than Sarah Palin...

 

Hell, my dog knows more then Sara Palin.....

 

North Korean's are basically brain-washed starting from birth. They will never, ever, consider any type of coup. And if we invaded..... We woun't be just fighting the Armed Forces, we would be fighting the entire population of that country.

[Azazello1313]

OK, I'll give you the 2000 election deal. To a degree. I'm not implying that '03 was the culmination of a 13 year old plot set forth then. Rather that there are those who could certainly profit from that campaign (hell, you guys are claiming the whole global warming deal is all a sham to profit green businesses, so don't act like it's just us lefties with the tin hats on) and those who could stand to profit likely have some pull.

 

So, it would be pretty handy to have some evidence laying around that pointed to reasons why they should take out a guy like Saddam. This doesn't mean they hatched W or even 9/11. Rather that when 9/11 happened, they seized the opportunity to go forward. Here you had a POTUS sympathetic to the cause, an attack on our country, and a congress fearful that anything short of blind allegiance in this time of tragedy would be seen as un-American.

 

Unless you make a point of blowing it out of proportion, it's not entirely unbelievable.

 

well yeah, there were some people who thought it was important to give saddam a smackdown for his attitude toward UN sanctions, his supposed WMD programs, his support of terrorism, and his facist attitude toward human rights. and they felt that way going back to the 90s. and those people had more pull once bush was in office (though there were plenty in the clinton administration who felt the same way).

 

the "bad intelligence" about WMD was the same going back to the clinton administration. it was the same in the US and everywhere else. yeah, once the determination was made to push through something congress and the UN, the administration went into "selling the case" mode. they should be held to account for getting it wrong and for pushing the case with greater certainty than may have been warranted. that doesn't make it some sort of conspiratorial "lie". when a prosecutor tries to convict someone who DNA evidence later proves was not guilty, does that make the prosecutor a liar?

[bpwallace49]

Az . . what do you think the first Gulf War was about?

[Yukon Cornelius]

Az . . what do you think the first Gulf War was about?

a love triangle gone bad.

[Chief Dick]

True, but their perception of their leader is one of near deification. They'd bring greater dishonor onto themselves (or so they think) if they went after him instead of offing themselves. I just don't think we can comprehend. They think we're the fakes.

 

It's interesting you bring up this point, because I have long thought along these lines.

 

You can't expect people to aspire to something that YOU think is right when they don't even know that world exists.

[Clubfoothead]

you mean, pre-emptively? how very neocon of you.

 

Not really...Ursa picked a country that actually is a security threat.

 

A lot of people opposed to the liberation of Iraq provided lists of countries much more worthy of liberation than Iraq. My recollection is that every one of those lists mentioned North Korea. I'm don't think people were arguing to go invade North Korea. Rather, people were pointing out that, for the exact reasons 43 listed for invading Iraq, North Korea was much more worthy of invading. On all counts.

 

North Korea has had nuclear aspirations since the 1970s - and have made no secret about it. Why was everyone rightfully basing Clinton for the missile and radar technology again? You are flat out lying if you want to claim North Korea's nuclear program sunck up on us in 2006. That's a joke. You are dumber than Sarah f*cking Palin if you want to claim we had no idea how dangerous North Korea was when we elected to liberate Iraq instead.

 

My resolution for 2010 was to try an minimize getting sucked into political threads but if the right is going to start claiming we didn't know North Korea was such a threat until after we liberated Iraq, screw my resolution. Thanks for ruining that 38 days in.

[untateve]

You know what I respect about North Korea? You're not allowed to burn their flag. I wish America was more like North Korea.

[Ursa Majoris]

It's interesting you bring up this point, because I have long thought along these lines.

 

You can't expect people to aspire to something that YOU think is right when they don't even know that world exists.

Exactly. The population of N Korea is completely isolated from the rest of the world and brainwashed from the age of 2. They have absolutely no frame of reference, unlike the East Germans who could pick up West German TV and radio. N Korean people have no clue that they are amongst the very worst-off people in the entire world.

 

Not really...Ursa picked a country that actually is a security threat.

 

A lot of people opposed to the liberation of Iraq provided lists of countries much more worthy of liberation than Iraq. My recollection is that every one of those lists mentioned North Korea. I'm don't think people were arguing to go invade North Korea. Rather, people were pointing out that, for the exact reasons 43 listed for invading Iraq, North Korea was much more worthy of invading. On all counts.

Nor was I advocating invasion, rather I was advocating doing everything possible to break the wall of containment that surrounds N Korea via such things as a propaganda blitz.

 

One of the complicating factors is that whatever we do, we have to consider China, which is very happy to have N Korea as a thorn in the American side. The Chinese won't allow Sonic the Hedgehog to go any further than they (the Chinese) want him to but they're cool with us having to deal with the nutcase.