Ford disagreed with Bush on invading Iraq

[Diamond Dandy]

Personally, I feel like the hornet's nest was whacked on 9/11 when it comes to militant Islam.

 

yep....that darned Iraqi Air Force had to take down the World Trade Centers.

[Run To State]

yep....that darned Iraqi Air Force had to take down the World Trade Centers.

First of all, where did I mention Iraq. My post was in response to a comment about militant Islam. Might want to actually read a post all the way through before you act so flippant.

[Diamond Dandy]

First of all, where did I mention Iraq. My post was in response to a comment about militant Islam. Might want to actually read a post all the way through before you act so flippant.

 

Problem is you are still trying to tie 911 with Iraq...sorry but there just isn't enough polish in the world to make that XXXXX shine.

[Run To State]

Problem is you are still trying to tie 911 with Iraq...sorry but there just isn't enough polish in the world to make that XXXXX shine.

Problem is you're trying to put words in my mouth and you couldn't be more incorrect. I can think just fine on my own and certainly don't need someone as bitter as you for help.

[Hearsay]

Enough, gentleman.

[shooter]

It's possible that the desire not to speak ill of a man so soon after his death plays a role. However, upon closer examination there really isn't much that Ford did that would cause the MSM to speak ill of him. Ford was by all accounts an honorable man whose personal integrity was seldom questioned. Ford's only act as president that would rankle the MSM was his pardon of Nixon. But since Nixon is long gone both personally and as a political force along with the judgement that the pardon probably was best for the country there is no need to attack Ford for this transgression. Ford's other acts as president included overseeing the final withdraw of Vietnam, offering amnesty to Vietnam War draft evaders and deserters along with appointing John Paul Stephens to the Supreme Court. Jimmy Carter would be happy to have included this list of accomplishments as part of his legacy. That's not a bad presidency, particularly for a Republican, from the MSM point of view.

[Frances Bavier]

I agree, shooter.

 

Ford was a good man, and he did what he thought was best, and most humane, for the situation in which he found himself and his country.

 

It's hard to fault that.

 

 

Frances

[mcpapa]

As a "knee-jerk liberal" at the time (I prefer to think of myself as a more thoughtful liberal three decades later). I remember jumping to the conclusion that some sort of "dirty deal" had been struck vis-a-vis the pardon.

 

Every indication, however, now as then, is that President Ford did what he thought was in the best interests of the nation. He took a lot of heat, political and otherwise for the pardon, knowing full well that would be the case.

[AHSPanther23]

As a "knee-jerk liberal" at the time (I prefer to think of myself as a more thoughtful liberal three decades later). I remember jumping to the conclusion that some sort of "dirty deal" had been struck vis-a-vis the pardon.

 

Every indication, however, now as then, is that President Ford did what he thought was in the best interests of the nation. He took a lot of heat, political and otherwise for the pardon, knowing full well that would be the case.

Mcpapa, did you see the funny they had in the Ledger the other day with Ford at Heaven's gates and it was saying his accomplishments and then there was a voice coming from earth saying "Send him back. We need him!!"? It makes you think what else he could have accomplished had he been given another year or two to live.

[Booge]

Like H, I think it is only normal to speak well of those that have passed, especially while at the funeral.

 

I would hope that even those that most venomously oppose Clinton's actions would be civil enough not to bring up his personal failures while looking down into the casket.

 

If Rush Limbaugh failed to mention the blue dress during the funeral, I wouldn't take that to mean that he had suddenly become a full fledged supporter of Clinton's. Likewise, many of us can find good things to say about Ford or Reagan, without embracing all of their policies or decisions.

 

Call it civility.

 

 

Frances

 

Very good post. I think people on both sides will find a lot of good to say when the sad day of Clinton's passing comes. Anyone who dwells on the blue dress fails to see the big picture and is a hater...

[Frances Bavier]

Very good post. I think people on both sides will find a lot of good to say when the sad day of Clinton's passing comes. Anyone who dwells on the blue dress fails to see the big picture and is a hater...

 

:thumb:

[ladiesbballcoach]

Like H, I think it is only normal to speak well of those that have passed, especially while at the funeral.

 

I would hope that even those that most venomously oppose Clinton's actions would be civil enough not to bring up his personal failures while looking down into the casket.

 

If Rush Limbaugh failed to mention the blue dress during the funeral, I wouldn't take that to mean that he had suddenly become a full fledged supporter of Clinton's. Likewise, many of us can find good things to say about Ford or Reagan, without embracing all of their policies or decisions.

 

Call it civility.

 

 

Frances

Your post reminded me of this debate.....

 

http://www.bluegrasspreps.com/showthread.php?t=88903&highlight=King

[leatherneck]

As a "knee-jerk liberal" at the time (I prefer to think of myself as a more thoughtful liberal three decades later). I remember jumping to the conclusion that some sort of "dirty deal" had been struck vis-a-vis the pardon.

 

Every indication, however, now as then, is that President Ford did what he thought was in the best interests of the nation. He took a lot of heat, political and otherwise for the pardon, knowing full well that would be the case.

 

 

Before I hijack this thread, I do want to pay my respects to President Ford. I believe he was an honest caring man. In many ways he reminded me of President Carter.

 

Now on to the quoted post. So the lesson learned by you and hopefully many others is that decisions made by Presidents today that are horribly unpopular can in fact, when viewed decades later, turn out to have been very enlightened and in the best interest of our country. Perhaps we all should remember that the next time we fly off the handle at the decisions made by our current President.

 

I still remain one of those people in the minority that believe the decision to remove Hussein and liberate Iraq will turn out to be one of the smartest and most courageous decisions made by any President. While we could all hope that the sanctions would have worked in controlling Hussein, no one and I mean no one can know for sure that they would have. We saw how the Oil for Food program was being abused and not properly supervised by the UN and we saw how corrupt the UN was. With that knowledge, could anyone realistically trust the UN to make sure that the sanctions were being implemented and followed? Honestly, if you were the President burdened with protecting American citizens, would you trust the UN to protect us? Could we know for sure that the sanctions would prevent Hussein from developing WMDs? I don't think so at all. At best we could have is hope and hope isn't real effective against biological and chemical weapons.

 

On the other hand, what we did know for certain was that Hussein was committed to developing WMDs as soon as he could. We did know for certain that Hussein was a lunatic and was not the least bit reluctant about ruthlessly killing innocent people, including his own people. We did know for certain that he was a sworn enemy of you and I and had vowed to kill Americans whenever and wherever he could. Maybe he was just spouting off, but with his track record would you bet your life and the life of your loved ones that he was just kidding? Why people think we should have given this guy one more day in power based on the hope that sanctions would work and that the UN would rigorously enforce them is somewhat puzzling to me.

 

A lot of people think the fact that there were no WMDs found supports their opposition to the war. If anything it only supports the fact that our intelligence agencies were not very good. The fact that WMDs were not found does not however change the fact that Hussein was a raving lunatic, committed to harming America whenever and however he could. As I oft stated, I'm thrilled to pete that our intelligence and Bush were wrong in that there were no WMDs found. All of the ground troops that invaded Iraq were danged thrilled that the intel community and Bush were wrong.

 

Would some of you have felt better if Bush had justified the war with the rationale that "Hussein does not yet have WMDs, but we believe he is committed to developing them, we take him at his word that he is committed to harming America and Americans whenever and wherever he can, we do not believe that sanctions will be effective in stopping him, we do not have faith in the UN that the sanctions will be enforced, and thus we are not going to give him any further time to develop them; rather we are going to attack him now before he can develop them in order to save 100s of thousand lives of our military"?

 

But if we can honestly put the political rhetoric aside and look at what was fact: that Hussein was crazy and ruthless; that he was committed to developing WMDs; that he was a sworn enemy of you and I, and that he was committed to doing us harm, I think one would logically agree that removing Hussein was the right thing to do.

 

Yes I realize that there are leaders of other countries also committed to harming us that we have not toppled with a military invasion. But with the exception of the leader of N. Korea (discussed below), I don't think any of them are certifiably insane like Hussein was or have the ability and financial resources to hurt us like Hussein did. And I thus believe we can control them or limit their ability to hurt us without overthrowing them with military force. Hussein was a crazy person who hated us and threatened harm to us and had the money to do it. He had to go and the sooner the better.

 

I'm not happy with what's going on in Iraq right now. Not at all. I do think that our intel was again wrong in believing that the people of Iraq would respond more positively to the chance for democracy in Iraq. I'm not happy that each day more of our fine young men and women are losing their lives for people who seem unwilling to recognize the wonderful opportunity that we have provided to them. But I also realize that to have done nothing but hope that the sanctions would eventually work was tantamount to the wishful thinking that the Brits and the French had towards Hitler. One can only speculate how many millions of lives would have been saved if Hitler had been stopped by an invasion of Germany in the late 30's (which I'm sure would have been criticized by many for not giving appeasement a chance to work) instead of allowing him more time to build up his military machine.

 

I look at our current inability to deal with N. Korea in a more forceful manner as further support for our actions against Iraq. We allowed N. Korea to get so strong that we cannot forcefully deal with N. Korea without a catastrophic loss to our military people. So we are now forced to negotiate with another madman. Does anyone think one can logically negotiate with a madman? I don't. Rather we have to count on China to use its leverage to protect us, S. Korea and Japan. Not a position I like being in thank you. I do thank the good Lord that we removed Hussein before he had the chance to create WMDs. I just wish we had done the same with N. Korea before it was too late and I wish the Brits and French had done the same with Hitler.

 

One final thought that is not discussed much. If the sanctions had resulted in the Iraqi people overthrowing Hussein (which a lot of people in support of the sanctions used for justification to stick with the sanctions), would Iraq have turned out much different that it is today? Does one logically think that the Shiites and the Sunnis would, like lion and lamb then lay down in the grass in peace next to one another? I don't think so. It would be just as a big of mess that it is today. And my guess is given the importance of the middle east to America and the likely invention of Iran and Syria into the situation, we would have sent our military into the mess to try and protect our national interests. And thus we would still have had our military personnel dieing while we try to stabilize the situation.

 

So perhaps several decades from now, when our current President is laid to rest, some of the same people that were so upset with Ford for pardoning Nixon will be saying how wrong they were to criticize Bush for removing Hussein, that he did what he thought was in the best interest of this nation and that he did so knowing full well that he would take a lot of heat, political and otherwise, for his decision but had the courage to do so anyway.

[Diamond Dandy]

Before I hijack this thread, I do want to pay my respects to President Ford. I believe he was an honest caring man. In many ways he reminded me of President Carter.

 

Now on to the quoted post. So the lesson learned by you and hopefully many others is that decisions made by Presidents today that are horribly unpopular can in fact, when viewed decades later, turn out to have been very enlightened and in the best interest of our country. Perhaps we all should remember that the next time we fly off the handle at the decisions made by our current President.

 

I still remain one of those people in the minority that believe the decision to remove Hussein and liberate Iraq will turn out to be one of the smartest and most courageous decisions made by any President. While we could all hope that the sanctions would have worked in controlling Hussein, no one and I mean no one can know for sure that they would have. We saw how the Oil for Food program was being abused and not properly supervised by the UN and we saw how corrupt the UN was. With that knowledge, could anyone realistically trust the UN to make sure that the sanctions were being implemented and followed? Honestly, if you were the President burdened with protecting American citizens, would you trust the UN to protect us? Could we know for sure that the sanctions would prevent Hussein from developing WMDs? I don't think so at all. At best we could have is hope and hope isn't real effective against biological and chemical weapons.

 

On the other hand, what we did know for certain was that Hussein was committed to developing WMDs as soon as he could. We did know for certain that Hussein was a lunatic and was not the least bit reluctant about ruthlessly killing innocent people, including his own people. We did know for certain that he was a sworn enemy of you and I and had vowed to kill Americans whenever and wherever he could. Maybe he was just spouting off, but with his track record would you bet your life and the life of your loved ones that he was just kidding? Why people think we should have given this guy one more day in power based on the hope that sanctions would work and that the UN would rigorously enforce them is somewhat puzzling to me.

 

A lot of people think the fact that there were no WMDs found supports their opposition to the war. If anything it only supports the fact that our intelligence agencies were not very good. The fact that WMDs were not found does not however change the fact that Hussein was a raving lunatic, committed to harming America whenever and however he could. As I oft stated, I'm thrilled to pete that our intelligence and Bush were wrong in that there were no WMDs found. All of the ground troops that invaded Iraq were danged thrilled that the intel community and Bush were wrong.

 

Would some of you have felt better if Bush had justified the war with the rationale that "Hussein does not yet have WMDs, but we believe he is committed to developing them, we take him at his word that he is committed to harming America and Americans whenever and wherever he can, we do not believe that sanctions will be effective in stopping him, we do not have faith in the UN that the sanctions will be enforced, and thus we are not going to give him any further time to develop them; rather we are going to attack him now before he can develop them in order to save 100s of thousand lives of our military"?

 

But if we can honestly put the political rhetoric aside and look at what was fact: that Hussein was crazy and ruthless; that he was committed to developing WMDs; that he was a sworn enemy of you and I, and that he was committed to doing us harm, I think one would logically agree that removing Hussein was the right thing to do.

 

Yes I realize that there are leaders of other countries also committed to harming us that we have not toppled with a military invasion. But with the exception of the leader of N. Korea (discussed below), I don't think any of them are certifiably insane like Hussein was or have the ability and financial resources to hurt us like Hussein did. And I thus believe we can control them or limit their ability to hurt us without overthrowing them with military force. Hussein was a crazy person who hated us and threatened harm to us and had the money to do it. He had to go and the sooner the better.

 

I'm not happy with what's going on in Iraq right now. Not at all. I do think that our intel was again wrong in believing that the people of Iraq would respond more positively to the chance for democracy in Iraq. I'm not happy that each day more of our fine young men and women are losing their lives for people who seem unwilling to recognize the wonderful opportunity that we have provided to them. But I also realize that to have done nothing but hope that the sanctions would eventually work was tantamount to the wishful thinking that the Brits and the French had towards Hitler. One can only speculate how many millions of lives would have been saved if Hitler had been stopped by an invasion of Germany in the late 30's (which I'm sure would have been criticized by many for not giving appeasement a chance to work) instead of allowing him more time to build up his military machine.

 

I look at our current inability to deal with N. Korea in a more forceful manner as further support for our actions against Iraq. We allowed N. Korea to get so strong that we cannot forcefully deal with N. Korea without a catastrophic loss to our military people. So we are now forced to negotiate with another madman. Does anyone think one can logically negotiate with a madman? I don't. Rather we have to count on China to use its leverage to protect us, S. Korea and Japan. Not a position I like being in thank you. I do thank the good Lord that we removed Hussein before he had the chance to create WMDs. I just wish we had done the same with N. Korea before it was too late and I wish the Brits and French had done the same with Hitler.

 

One final thought that is not discussed much. If the sanctions had resulted in the Iraqi people overthrowing Hussein (which a lot of people in support of the sanctions used for justification to stick with the sanctions), would Iraq have turned out much different that it is today? Does one logically think that the Shiites and the Sunnis would, like lion and lamb then lay down in the grass in peace next to one another? I don't think so. It would be just as a big of mess that it is today. And my guess is given the importance of the middle east to America and the likely invention of Iran and Syria into the situation, we would have sent our military into the mess to try and protect our national interests. And thus we would still have had our military personnel dieing while we try to stabilize the situation.

 

So perhaps several decades from now, when our current President is laid to rest, some of the same people that were so upset with Ford for pardoning Nixon will be saying how wrong they were to criticize Bush for removing Hussein, that he did what he thought was in the best interest of this nation and that he did so knowing full well that he would take a lot of heat, political and otherwise, for his decision but had the courage to do so anyway.

 

Good post. But I think when investigations start, it will be found that intel was not bad, just cherry picked. We should have listened to the Weapons Inspectors, who told us they had no WMD. We knew that there was no African connection and the CIA even took the bold step of having it removed from at least one of Bush's speeches, although he add it in a later speeches.

I think much of Sadam's posturing was an attempt to bluff Iran as much as it was to decive the United States. Say what you want, but Sadam better understood the mid ease and controlled sectarian violence. Unfortunately, it seems like we just choose sides in a civil war and there wil be regional alignment.

[HHSDad]

Yes I realize that there are leaders of other countries also committed to harming us that we have not toppled with a military invasion. But with the exception of the leader of N. Korea (discussed below), I don't think any of them are certifiably insane like Hussein was or have the ability and financial resources to hurt us like Hussein did. And I thus believe we can control them or limit their ability to hurt us without overthrowing them with military force. Hussein was a crazy person who hated us and threatened harm to us and had the money to do it. He had to go and the sooner the better.

What about Iran? They have been the leading terrorist nation since 1979. They supply terrorists with weapons and money. They boldly develop WMD's and disperse their knowledge to other nations like North Korea. And they have been outspoken of their hatred for the Great Satan over the past 25 years. I neither feel that Iraq was ever the threat that was claimed, nor did we have the right to overthrow a soverign nation. Yes Sadaam kept SE Asia unstable, but how many countries around the world can also make that claim? I still feel to this day that Bush came into office seeking a way to take care of "unfinished business."