The London attacks belong to Bush and Blair and not in a tinfoil hat way.

[Pepperbelly]

These two deceitful, sanctimonious, rotten sons of bitches were so intent to capture Iraq that they didn't give the slightest fucking consideration of what they were doing. Nobody in the whole world gave a shit when we attacked Afghanistan. The Taliban's sheltering of these outlaws was well-established despite their self-serving crap about "if they prove it to us, we will turn him over."

No, almost everyone could live with that call. Afghanistan was due.

But these assholes then had to conflate all of it together and gin up a fucking EMERGENCY invasion of a sovereign nation, killed 100,000+ Iraqis, and now, while those two punks were toasting each other for how clever they are, the shit hits the fan. These two assholes are pulling their puds in Iraq with an eye toward empire and they let the fucking wolf right into the chicken coop while they're guarding the south fucking forty.

I put this squarely at their feet. Their incompetence, their hubris, their corruption have led to more deaths than Saddam and Osama put together have managed.

[AlCzervik]

1. i do as well, this Imo was retaliation for Iraq

[bullimiami]

2. pepper, i think afghanistan was a fuck up too. here is why.

bush didnt give a camel crap about the taliban and how they treated their people.
he was ready to do biz with them and gave them a 40mil dollar or so present up front.
they were invited to texas for a parlay over the pipeline and were told 'carpet of gold or carpet of bombs'

all bushco cared about was getting an oil friendly govt in there and get the pipeline started.
karzai and done. afghanistan is still suffering and bush doesnt give a shit.

iraq. yup a big fuck up and it is getting worse not better. bush and his enabler blair have screwed the world up royally but the big bush backers are raking it in hand over fist.

yes it is squarely at their feet.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Bushco just wanted to make sure China did not get their hands on that oil

without US companies getting some of the profits. Saddam was ready to start trading in Euros.

We could have been oil independent 20 years ago if we wanted to, but that would have meant that other countries would have made all that money off the oil that was in the Middle Ea$t.

[DemInDistress]

10. Saddam was already trading oil for Euros

He went off the U.S.Dollar in 2000.He bought a 10 billion contract for Euros in 2001.Our "Chimp and Cheney" weren't going to permit Saddam to continue trading 212 billion bbls. of oil for Euros.I believe this war is "economic" and well as strategic from pnac's point of view.The New World Order on the march..hope we can stop them

[TahitiNut]

6. I too believe Afghanistan was a crime.

It makes no difference that a shocked mob of nations went along with it ... except the ease with which the Bushoilini cabal invaded a sovereign nation was all the encouragement they needed to pull out all the stops.

[Mandate My Ass]

14. Agreed

They dithered for months before invading Afghanistan, giving terrorist cells operating there plenty of time and notice to clear out, but couldn't wait a New York minute to invade Iraq, which had nothing at all to do with 9/11.

Their actions, when compared with their rhetoric, always give them away.

[Vladimir]

8. Nicely put n/t

[Pepperbelly]

11. Bush's intentions are whatever they are. He is truly evil and I would

never care to guess to what depths he might sink if he believed something was to his advantage. However, that doesn't mean that the strategic elements of going to Afghanistan were wrong. Like everything else, when this corrupt bastard and his pirates get their filthy mitts on something, they bend it to where it is a money-maker for them and their minions (or puppetteers).

However, the Taliban did provide sanctuary for Osama and his band of pirates as wwll. There was a significant national security interest in attacking Bin Laden there. It was his main hidey-hole and that is where you go look for someone when they're running. That is what the international community saw as well as our Congress and Senate by virtually unanimous votes. I saw the strategic interest. I suppose that boils down to a matter of opinion, but part of it we have very common ground: Bush screwed the pooch in defending us against terrorism, just as Blair screwed the pooch and it all comes down to them serving monied interests rather than national security.

[TahitiNut]

18. Do Venezuela and Cuba have the 'right' to bomb and invade the U.S.

... because the U.S. refuses to extradite a Cuban terrorist (Luis Posada Carriles) who entered the U.S. illegally, who has Venezuelan citizenship, and who's known to have blown up a Cuban airplane killing 73 people?

Or does the 'right' only extend to the country with the biggest military? (i.e. Does "might make right"?)

Law, even international law, is the only mechanism whereby justice can be attained without resorting to the murder of thousands of innocents.

[TahitiNut]

3. Imagine how much worse it could've been during Live-8.

In a very perverse way, I think it shows restraint.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. I agree..and if not as retaliation, it was the inevitable result of

Iraq and what was done there by the U.S. and its "allies". Many, many innocent Iraqis were tortured and killed, the U.S. NEVER fulfilled its "promise" to deliver the Iraqi citizens from the abuses of Saddam, they never rebuilt the cities they destroyed, and they created a perfect, incredibly fertile birthing place for future terrorists. Osama bin Laden could not have hoped for a better outcome if he had devised it himself.

[Disturbed]

7. Could the Bush Regime have...

gone to Afghanistan and focused exclusively on AQ? Did they real need to bomb the shit out of the country and taken it over, well at least Kabul?

[Pepperbelly]

13. I don't know enough to really say ...

I know that Taliban presence would not have been helpful in going after A.Q. I also know that the Taliban were pretty fucked up and I do not mourn their bronze age asses passing in the least.

[judy]

16. Yes, Disturbed and Maple, you are spot on!!!

This is why I don't believe in Al Qaeda (or at least not in AQ as they describe it, such as when people on MSM refer to "Al Qaeda fighters"). None of what they do makes any sense if you believe what they say...

[Maple]

9. No one was 'good to go'

on Afghanistan either.

Why bomb thousands of innocent Afghanis just because Bushwa said bin Laden did it, and he was in Afghanistan?

I ask you...would he hang around? No.

But thousands of Afghanis couldn't move.

[Pepperbelly]

12. See my post # 11. nt

[Disturbed]

15. "The Taliban still exists and will cause death..."

I wrote that two weeks ago and unfortunately I was correct. The Taliban are still waging their war. Afghanistan is not pacified and in my view will nver be. The Mayor of Kabul, Karazi cannot venture out of his little domain.

[Pepperbelly]

17. Yep ...

and if Bush hadn't had such a hard-on for the Iraqi oil fields and the fat Halliburton contracts, he could have used the Taliban's rout to operate against A.Q. and broken its back.

Of course, that isn't what happened.