Current Politics - The Bush Doctrine

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I'm conservitive, I'mma get frekin bashed on here, but ah well.

1. They blew up a frekin important building.
2. They also tried to blow up the whitehouse
3. We get reports saying they are making nukes

WTH are we supposed to think? "Nah, the terrorists are jokin about the nuke thing :D OMG good one guyz! " Err- no. We blitz them with troops and blow apart their peice of crap military and make sure they can't use those nukes.

Here's the problem in your line of thinking, and don't feel bad because most of the country has been slowly duped into it:
Al-Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 bombings, not Iraq.  We invaded Afghanistan because it was the last known location of Bin Laden and the core of the organization, and because the Afghani government refused to make a commitment to root them out and turn them over to the U.S.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11; if confronted directly, nobody in the Bush administration even tries to claim otherwise.  I'll link some interview videos if you don't believe me but I hope you'll take my word for it >.<
We went into Iraq supposedly for fear that they were developing nuclear weaponry and other WMDs, not in pursuit of Bin Laden, who the administration didn't even think would be found there.  Evidence has been pouring out since then that there was very little to no reason to believe that, however, and that the Bush administration went looking for a reason to attack Iraq, rather than coming across a reason and acting on it, as they wanted the public to believe. 
Rumsfeld actually created a new branch of the pentagon to generate "intelligence" on Iraq when he became dissapointed with the CIA, who insisted that there was no evidence to support his agenda because the evidence didn't exist; pressure was put on this new "intelligence" division to come up with the evidence by any means necessary - i.e. invent it.
The fact is the neo-conservative movement have had a vendetta against Iraq for a long time now, and they felt that we should get over there and get rid of Saddam by any means necessary; they've been obsessed with the idea for a long time and frankly don't care if there's a "good reason" or not.
Anyway the short of it is, Iraq and 9/11 have nothing to do with eachother, 9/11 should not enter into any conversation about Iraq.

Secondly, they had the resources needed to make it. Give Iran and Iraq a few years, they'd have 10 ready-to-to WMDs. I was told this by a few US soldiers.

Bush doctorine or whatever, is not too extreme.
Heck yeah we shoulda gone there.
We should stay in Iraq til we finish the mess.

I don't support America's rampage for spreading democracy. They are just using it as this pitiful excuse:
"Well, we blew it up! Their government is gone. SAY! Why don't we build it like our country? Yes, we know this is your country. Yes, we know you don't want it. But we pretty much ruined your country, so we know better."
Iraq isn't a dog. Theres real people in it.

That would be fine and good if Iraq did have the resources, but we have no reason to believe they did (and we never did have any reason to believe Iraq was currently developing nuclear weapons of any kind or even had an effective nuclear program at all since its dismantling a decade ago by the UN).  Iran and North Korea, on the other hand - sure, we know they're developing nukes and they've no problem talking about it.  Iraq though, Iraq is a fiasco.

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with being conservative and an intelligent person wouldn't attack you based on that (actually the whole conservative vs. liberal thing is retarded on so many levels); however being conservative doesn't amount to having to support a rogue faction of the republican party or a corrupt administration just because they claim to agree with your values.

 

[Incognitus]

We invaded Afghanistan because it was the last known location of Bin Laden and the core of the organization, and because the Afghani government refused to make a commitment to root them out and turn them over to the U.S.

Actually the last known location of Bin Laden should technically be Pakistan: He was recieving treatment in a Pakistani hospital on 9/11 from whence he gave a noteworthy statement.


The Taliban offered to extradite Binladen to a third party nation - I believe it was Saudi Arabia, but they later settled with our "ally" Pakistan. They've offered to extradite him to Saudi Arabia several times across the decades beforehand. The US picked up some riverting documents when they liberated Kabul that shows that they knew he was a firecracker they didn't want in their midst, wanted to keep control, but they just didn't want to piss off his supporters or be engaged in a long war with his followers which they knew they'd probably lose.
After 9/11, two islamic groups based in Pakistan, Amat-i-Islami and Jamat Ulema-e-Islam negociated a settlement with the Taliban in which bin Laden would be extradited to Pakistan to stand trial for the 11 September attacks. The proposal had Bin Laden's approval, and he said he would co-operate fully, so long as the initial proceedings were carried out within a frame work of sharia law (and whilst it might be tempting to suggest that this was a loophole to aquit him, the vast majority of Islamic scholars around the region - included your rabid "anti-American" types all condemned the attacks.) before being brought before an international tribunal.  Despite being agreed upon by Mullah Omar and Bin Laden, the deal was vetoed by Musharraf, apparently because he couldn't guarantee BinLaden's safety. (Observer, 7th Oct.) (Independent, 1st Oct) ('Bin Laden "hidden by Taleban", BBC News Online, 30 Sept.)

Qudrutullah Jamal, the Taliban information minister said in earlier days of negociation, "Anyone who is responsible for this act, Osama or not, we will not side with him. We told [the Pakistan delegation] to give us proof that he did it, because without that how can we give him up?". A couple of days after that Ambassador Zaeef said, 'We are not ready to hand over Osama bin Laden without evidence'. (Times, 22 Sept)

So in short thus far, the Taliban did not "refuse to make a commitment to root them out" on the contrary, they refused to make a comitment to root them out without evidence.

However that changed: on 1st Oct., Mullah Omar agreed to bin Laden's extradition to Pakistan without evidence of his guilt. (Times, 22 Sept.)


One argument I often get when presenting this is that the Taliban cannot be trusted to keep their word (no proof. Large assumption) or that war would have been inevitable anyway. The last argument is particularly flawed because it suggests that the violent option is more preferable to the non-violent option. Even if you feel that the non-violent option would have led nowhere, if like me, you believe in the idea of the Just War, it is impossible to disagree that it should not have been followed until it was either exhausted or a proven failure: That was not the first choice of the Bush Administration, and given all they had to do was present the evidence which we obviously have.

I have in front of me a copy of the dossier that Blair presented to Parliament seven years ago which allegedly contained the conclusive proof that Binladen had been behind the attacks of 9/11. It begins that “this document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama bin Laden in a court of law.â€

 

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@Incognitus, regarding the Taliban: Yeah I was being overly simplistic with that statement, I agree with your elaboration.   I was more interested in making the point about the relationship with 9/11 and Iraq than discussing the legitimacy of our invasion of Afghanistan.

Regarding Iran: I'll have to read about that more when I get a chance, apparently I'm not informed.

Oh also bravo on your citations, that's the sort of thing we should all do when discussing current events.