BearcatCarl Wrote:Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait...did he not?
Hussein had been slaughtering Kurds for quite sometime, if I'm not mistaken. (I realize we have some culpability here)
Saddam also tried to murder George H.W. Bush while in Kuwait in the '90s - and while Barbra Streisand would've been very happy, attempting to kill an ex-US President is still a pretty serious issue.
Good post, BearcatCarl.
I guess I have these thoughts:
All three of the tragedies (or near tragedies) you cite above are many years old, and two were dealt with in full.
Invaded Kuwait? We joined arms with the world and drove him out.
Plotted against former President Bush's life? Dozens of missiles were fired at Iraq's intelligence headquarters, converting it into rubble. That was the last act of terrorism known to have been conceived by Iraq against the United States.
Genocide? The bulk of what Saddam did occurred before the Gulf War. As far as I know, nothing that could be construed as genocide has occurred at the hands of Saddam since the unrest that immediately followed the Persian Gulf War. And the main target of that genocide -- the Kurds -- had been free of Saddam for years.
So, the reality is none of these tragedies were even an issue when Bush took office. They were not an issue when the war was debated in the United States (despite how much the tragedies were discussed). And they were not an issue for ordinary Iraqis when that footage was shot of Iraqis outdoors flying a kite.
I'll pick up this line of thought in a moment.
Quote:The Clinton administration, the Russian government, MI-6 and others felt (and still feel in the latter duo's case) that Hussein was trying to purchase yellowcake from Africa. Joe Wilson's vitriolic wet dream has been squashed, so we don't have any reason to think Hussein wasn't trying to grab weapons grade plutonium.
Some thoughts here:
My understanding -- and I'll stand corrected -- is that it was never the consensus among U.S. intelligence officials that Hussein attempted to purchase yellow cake from Niger. This fact helped fuel the bruhaha after Bush's State of the Union speech. The basic problem was that Bush cited the opinion of British intelligence while ignoring our own.
This is essentially why George Tenet called it a "mistake" for Bush to include the reference to yellowcake in his speech. American opinion was more skeptical of the British claim.
And that's where matters stood when Moore shot his movie.
(I would further suggest that it would still overstate facts to suggest that we *know* Saddam attempted to buy uranium. British intelligence obviously continues think an attempt was made)
You mention "weapons grade plutonium."
Yellow cake is a long, long, long from weapons grade uranium, and there is no way at all -- from Saddam's perspective -- that yellowcake could be converted to plutonium. Plutonium can only be manufactured in certain types of nuclear reactors, and Iraq has no nuclear reactors.
This article on yellowcake is pretty informative:
<a href='http://slate.msn.com/id/2085848' target='_blank'>http://slate.msn.com/id/2085848</a>
[quote]The kite flying imagery doesn't jive with the above. Moore using that footage suggests something that quite frankly exists only in a Potemkin world and has no bearing on our Iraq efforts...which have given millions of people democratic opportunities they never would have had under a Baathist regime. In fact, the kite flying thing would be more appropriate NOW, given the children that are in school (GIRLS included, for the first time) and in possession of the supplies they sorely need thanks to guys like Gary Sinise and Operation Iraqi Children.
I didn't see the kite-flying as an exercise in symbolism. It was simply a shot of people doing what they do. It wasn't the only scene. I believe Moore had footage of people at a market, people at a wedding party.
Yes, Saddam was running a police state as they flew that kite and as people shopped outdoors and as people were at a wedding party. Presumably, Saddam's prisons contained political prisoners during those scenes. Presumably, he was still torturing people behind closed doors.
But I can't imagine any American walking into a movie theater not knowing Saddam was a bad man, anyway. We've been informed of that again and again by our president, the media, and everyone else. In his voice overs, Moore nothing to counter that view of Saddam.
What Moore did was show what
most people do in a police state: Get on with their lives and make the best of things.
And this was important in making the gravity of the decision to go to war clear. What followed were some awful scenes -- stunning footage, the kind they just can't show on television because it's too awful.
I'm not a Quaker. But I do think all that was important. And the scenes of Baghdad in the days before the war helped set the stage.
I would add this: We have yet to see whether Iraq actually turns into a democracy. That seems to be the goal people who support the war want to talk about now. But it remains unrealized.
Some wonderful efforts have been made to improve the lives of Iraqis and I'm certain our servicemen and women are doing their absolute best to make things better.
But the reality is, no elections have been held.
And, despite the good people are trying to do right now, Iraq continues to experience massive unrest. More Americans died in July -- after the handover -- than in June. Our troops have been engaged in active fighting in Najaf and the Sadr City section of Baghdad for six days now.
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Swift Boat Vets have an Anti-Kerry ad
:rolltide: :eek: