“Let's clear up one point: We didn't start the war on terror. Try to remember. It was started by terrorists on 9/11. Let's look at the 'worst' president and mismanagement claims.”
Iraq has no connection with the terrorists on 9/11. This is supported by the following, among many others:
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatowski, USAF, formerly of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans.
Jeffrey Record of the U.S. Army War College.
Joseph C. Wilson IV, a retired ambassador who was a secret envoy of the Bush administration to Africa.
Paul O’Neil, former Treasury Secretary under G.W. Bush.
Rand Beers, former Bush White House counter-terrorism coordinator.
Richard A. Clarke, counterterrorism coordinator for the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II administrations.
Stansfield Turner, former CIA director
Ray McGovern, who heads a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Pentagon Middle East analyst Peter Molan
Greg Theilmann, a former senior official with the State Department.
Tom Maertens, foreign service officer in the counterterrorism operation of the State Department.
David Kay, former U.S. weapons inspector.
Hans Blix, U.N. weapons inspector.
Rolf Ekeus, the former head of the U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq.
Scott Ritter, chief U.N. inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998.
Mohamed El Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.”
Japan attacked the United States on December 7, 1941. Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941. Is the writer suggesting that we should have allowed Germany to conquer Europe, sink our ships, and continue the progroms under which they killed 12 million innocent people?
“Truman finished that war and started one in Korea. North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year.”
Truman did not start the Korean war. We had a treaty obligation to defend South Korea. As a U.N. member we joined the coalition that went to South Korea’s aid when they were attacked by North Korea.
“John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.”
In a press conference on April 7, 1954, President Eisenhower used the “domino theory” to describe the consequences of a Communist takeover of French Indochina (Vietnam). The first U.S. military “advisors” (35) were placed in Vietnam by Truman in 1950. Eisenhower increased that presence to 654 “advisors” along with over a billion dollars in military aid. JFK increased the number to 16,000. By the time Kennedy was killed, 489 U.S. servicemen had been killed there. On October 11, 1963, JFK signed orders to begin a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. (
http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM263.html)
The “domino theory” was used as justification for military action in Southeast Asia from the term of Eisenhower/Nixon through most of Richard Nixon’s term.
“Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.”
Johnson was president for only 4-1/2 years of this period. Nixon was president for 5-1/2 years. Most of these losses were under Nixon.
“Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent. Bosnia never attacked us.”
The war in Bosnia was a NATO action. We are a member of NATO. The Serbs were engaged in “ethnic cleansing.” No U.S. casualties resulted from that action.
“He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.”
In March of 1996, Sudan offered to arrest bin Laden on behalf of the U.S. There was no evidence at that time that bin Laden had committed a crime against the U.S. so the Clinton administration begged Saudi Arabia to take him. The Saudis refused and, after 10 weeks of negotiation, the matter was closed and Sudan expelled bin Laden whereupon bin Laden took up residence in Afghanistan. Since bin Laden was expelled from Sudan on this occasion, they couldn’t have offered him after that.
In 1998, Clinton signed an order for the CIA to assassinate Osama bin Laden
Clinton’s efforts against bin Laden in the last years of his administration were widely criticized by Republicans as “wagging the dog” to divert attention from the Monica story. This discouraged Clinton from continuing his bombing of al Qaeda camps. Those criticisms may have contributed to the success of the September 11 attack.
“In the two years since terrorists attacked us, President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.”
The countries of Afghanistan and Iraq are presently occupied by foreign powers. Whether the Taliban has been removed permanently in Afghanistan remains to be seen and appears doubtful right now. Afghanistan’s Opium production is now up to pre-Taliban levels and the Afghani farmers are probably really grateful to us for that. Afghanistan’s warlords are back in power and our small force there is no match for them.
While there was an immediate threat from al Qaeda there was and is no evidence that Iraq posed an imminent threat. The Iraq war has cost us almost 600 of our own and killed more than 10,000 Iraqi civilian people.
Libya has been moving toward a less militant position since 1986. In March of 2003, Libya's chief of intelligence, contacted the British government and signaled Libya's willingness to publicly abandon its programs on weapons of mass destruction in return for concessions from the United States.
Iran has banned U.N. inspectors as of March 14, 2004.
There were U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors in North Korea until Bush called Kim Jong Il a pygmy and named North Korea to the Axis of Evil. North Korea has rejected U.S. demands to dismantle its nuclear weapons.
There’s no argument against the fact that Saddam Hussein was an evil leader. If it is our mission to take out all the evil leaders in the world, we still could have waited until the immediate threat (al Qaeda) was removed before going after these leaders.
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