Get ready to hear this a lot: "Even Clinton thought Saddam had WMDs"

[NNN0LHI]

Instant comeback: "But Clinton didn't invade Iraq"

Don

[Ignacio Upton]

1. Also, with Gore's quotes

He said similar things to Clinton, but he opposed the war from the start

[cantstandbush]

38. Yes, but Clinton didn't invade on a "thought" and cause the deaths of

2000 US soldiers and thousands of innocent Iraqis. A "thought" is not "evidence."

[Seansky]

2. comback: But Clinton didn't lied...and nobody died.

[AussieDave]

37. Or rather: "Clinton lied about a blow-job - but nobody died"

[kiraboo]

3. Not wanting to be a pain,

but I'm pretty sure Clinton bombed Iraq now and then during his tenure. I remember it, because I was appalled. We will never win a political discussion by insisting on Clinton's "virtues" and we shouldn't even try.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NNN0LHI]

10. Big difference. How many Americans got killed in Iraq with Clinton prez?

How many hundreds of billions of dollars did Clinton piss away there? Thats all the voters care about.

Don

[kiraboo]

33. Don, with respect:

it's not about american deaths exclusively, is it?

[NNN0LHI]

36. To your average American voter the answer to your question is yes

That is just the way it is not the way I want it.

Don

[mzmolly]

4. That was before Operation Desert Fox when Clinton disarmed Saddam.

[mike_c]

5. not the only thing Clinton was wrong about, but as you say...

...he didn't invade Iraq. He did press a murderous economic sanctions program that was responsible for the deaths of up 500,000 children, and maintained constant harrassment from the air. Clinton has little to be proud of for not invading Iraq, IMO.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cynatnite]

7. Another comeback:

In explaining to Gulf War veterans why he chose not to pursue the war further, he said, "whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho? We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power — America in an Arab land — with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush#Gulf_War

[Jacobin]

8. So...............what did he do about it?

Had the UN weapons inspectors go in and destroy them.

And guess what? It worked.

[YDogg]

11. I heard something like that on Hardball about 20 mins ago ...

... and Tweety just let it slide. Some such BS as " so did the last administration" (believe there were WMDs).

Such a copout. It ignores everything that has happened under bush, as if he has had no influence.

[mikeytherat]

12. But (to wingnuts) Bill Clinton is a serial liar, a commie, a murderer,

a traitor, a scumbag, The Worst President Ever...

and yet these people cite him as an example for Iraq War 2's necessity?

Wow. I mean, wow.

How far is Shrubby in the hole when freeptards use Slick Willy to prop him up?

mikey_the_rat

[FreedomAngel82]

31. Exactly

I'd remind them: "and here I thought you hated Clinton and he was a liar to you...so you believe him?" Make them the fool they are.

[Lex]

13. Clinton didn't rush into an ill-advised invasion of Iraq either, did he?

That's always my comeback.

[stopbush]

14. And who told Clinton that SH had WMD? Why, Rumsfeld!!

In 1998: "Eight years later, Donald Rumsfeld signed on to an "open letter" to President Clinton, calling on him to eliminate "the threat posed by Saddam." It urged Clinton to "provide the leadership necessary to save ourselves and the world from the scourge of Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction that he refuses to relinquish."

Lots more here: http://www.democracynow.org/static/rumsfeldcloset.shtml

[Rosco T.]

15. Comeback#2: "Clinton didn't kill 100,000 Iraquis to make money". n/m

[Catrina]

17. Good one ~ and .....

yes, Clinton was told that by former members of the Reagan/Bush administration who would know, since they sold him the weapons materials for over a decade. They, and Saddam no doubt have the receipts.

But, that was in 1998, before he (Clinton) disarmed the country when he launched Desert Fox, a four day campaign on the remnants of Saddam's WMD, given to him by the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.

Democrats, always cleaning up Republican messes!!

Oh, and all those other quotes, Gore etc., are mostly dated '1998'. I've been given those quotes by rightwingers trying (hilariously considering how they despise him) to use Clinton to justify Bush's crimes!

Whenever I tell rightwingers about Operation Desert Fox, they have no idea it ever happened. They were way too busy calling everything Clinton did a 'wag the dog' affair. I remember Trent Lott saying at the time that he while he 'supported the troops' he wouldn't 'support this president'!!

We have to remember that rightwingers are ignorant of anything that was going on in the nineties in the way of real news, because the 'liberal media' never covered it, and wasted hours and hours of air-time on a personal affair between two consenting adults.

Freepers were being thoroughly indoctrinated by Rush et al about Monica and other important matters in the nineties. As a result, they are completely ignorant of everything else, and are shocked when confronted with what was really going on back then. They do become quite violent when they are informed of all they did not know, so be careful when you deliver the facts to them. They absolutely HATE facts!

[Elwood P Dowd]

16. And how much intel came from the Reagan/Bush CIA?

Also, remember all the insults and jokes hurled at Clinton back in the late-90s? Every time he said or did something relating to Saddam or al Qaeda, the repukes would crucify him.

[Fozzledick]

18. "So a lie becomes the truth if you fool someone into believing it ?"

[garybeck]

19. this is not about thinking Saddam had WMDs

this is a different ballgame. thinking saddam had WMDs is not the issue. it's about breaking the law. it's about starting a war. it's about fabricating evidence and lying to the american people. did clinton do any of that? Don't stoop to their level. The comeback to this is sooooo obvious.

[noahmijo]

20. Yup that's the difference right there!

When they bring up "But even Democrats thought Saddam was bad!!" yea and they were right Saddam was bad.

BUT THEY NEVER ADVOCATED INVASION AND CREATING IRAQNAM.

[NNN0LHI]

22. Even old man Bush knew better

Thats why he stopped before he got to Baghdad in 1991. He said so in his book.

Don

[noahmijo]

24. I love that line in "Three Kings" when Clooney says

something to the effect of "We're not staying here we don't need another Vietnam"

I forget if it was his own line or if he was supposedly quoting old man Bush.

[NNN0LHI]

25. Here are the old mans exact words

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/gulfwar.asp

In Chapter 19, which discusses the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War (also known as "Desert Storm," the military operation to liberate Kuwait from occupation by invading Iraqi forces), they wrote:


Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different — and perhaps barren — outcome.

[noahmijo]

27. Thanks! (Filed for talking point)

[spanone]

21. Some wingnut from the National Review throws that at Tweety today.

He dismissed it.

[Joe Chi Minh]

23. But you (Republicans) spent years telling us

how unreliable Clinton is! What are you telling us now? That you were not only idiots, but an aggressive and dangerous liability to the nation over all that period of time, fiercely seeking to undermine the efforts of a wise President to govern the nation, in any way you could? Is that what you're trying to say? You want to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds?

[oregonindy]

26. Clinton wasnt a traitor and didnt forge documents and out a CIA agent

to start an illegal war

[SammyWinstonJack]

28. Who cares what the right wing nutcases say? We know how they blame

or 'embrace' Clinton whenever it suits their evil agenda. They are so very transparent, it's a wonder anyone believes their out right crap anymore.

[LSK]

29. PERFECT COMEBACK: HE DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- From the Oval Office, President Clinton told the nation Wednesday evening why he ordered new military strikes against Iraq.

The president said Iraq's refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors presented a threat to the entire world.

"Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons," Clinton said.

snip


http://www.cnn.com/US/9812/16/clinton.iraq.speech/

[FreedomAngel82]

30. My response to that is

"so what? Clinton isn't president anymore. Bush is. Bush isn't man enough to do something without Clinton? Sounds to me like Bush is a pussy." It shouldn't matter if Clinton thought that or said he thought so. He doesn't have any power. Bush was president when we invaded Iraq. The buck stops with him. Period.

[creeksneakers2]

32. Lots of people believed the WMD lies until

the evidence was made public. By the time the war started, at the very least, Bush knew there were serious flaws in the intelligence. The aluminum tube story fell flat. Niger documents turned out to be forgeries. Satellite intelligence didn't check out when inspectors on the ground followed up on it.

I have made a much longer list of what was known to the world about WMD intelligence problems while Bush was still selling that case for war.

I think Clinton and others mostly based their belief that Saddam had WMD on Saddam's lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors. They figured he had to be hiding something. But, under Bush, Saddam started cooperating completely. So the hiding something logic was no longer viable.

Bush knew it all wasn't true, or at least knew there was no good reason to believe any of it was true. Clinton didn't know.

That's the difference between a lie and a mistake.

[NYC Liberal]

34. I wouldn't have supported an invasion whether it was Clinton OR Bush.

Of course, when I tell that to Clinton-haters all they say is "Easy to say now."

[Midlodemocrat]

35. Yes, he did. But he didn't stand in front of a joint session of

Congress and the American people and state that Iraq definitively had WMD. Thinking that they did and cooking the intelligence are two very, very different things.

[Fescue4u]

39. Most people thought he had WMDs

Most of our allies did including France and Germany.

Saddam acted as though he had WMDs, while saying that he didnt.

Its true there was a few experts and lay people who said he didnt, but the "common knowledge" was that Saddam had'm.

Prewar, there was really no (or little) dispute that Saddam had WMDs. What was the question, was how to deal with it.

Only Bush was dumb enough to take the bait and start a Holy war.

[B Calm]

40. Instant comeback: Clinton wore Home of the Whopper boxer shorts

and has a 10 inch mr chubby..

[SlavesandBulldozers]

41. Perfect comeback: But i thought we went in to give them liberty

and perteckt ar freedumb.