Thread: Downing Street Memo

it's a much better reason for impeachment than the presidents sex life

If I'm not mistaken, Clinton was impeached for lying under oath.

Sounds fair. I'm not gonna deny that there very well may have been tampering with inteligence, etc.. but WMDs or not (and I'm still of the opinion that many were shipped to Jordan in the weeks before the inevitable invasion), Iraq still, in my opinion, needed to be invaded. Rape chambers. Mass graves. Oh won't somebody pleease think of the children!?

Now I think there needs to be an investigation into the shamming of inteligence, but I don't think everybody should be using this to attack the current administration as a whole. Sure there are lots of places that need to be invaded. Take for example, Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe took over the country after several years of being a "freedom fighter against a racist government". However, this was against one of the least racist governments I've ever heard of in Africa. In my opinion, he was and is in every sense of the word a terrorist. He refuses UN aid, and the majority of his country is dying from starvation, AIDS, and the police who help themselves to anything they see fit from civilians. I wouldn't be surprized if his mass graves were accompanied by rape chambers - but what the heck does America want from Zimbabwe? We can't destory them all, so let's start with the ones most relevant to US interests.

This is funner without rep.

(Hey someone else needs to jump in here. I think we're about done. And I'm going to bed.)

The downing street memo is too debatable to use as evidence. It doesn't seem to fit anywhere in the timeline of events and is therefore thought of as a fake. On top of that why go to the U.N. if you decided to use military action before going to the U.N.? The memo doesn't hold up as credible evidence.

1) It was written by a third party
2) The word fix has several meaning
3) The third party does not attribute the word fix to a direct quote from either Bush or Blair
4) Why has none of the people that seem so concerned regarding the memo asked the person that wrote it what it means
5) Regime change in Iraq has been "Official US POLICY Since 1998).

I agree as well that the whole war issue is losing ground and that there well may never have been a good reason to go. Several of my friends and I'm sure several of yours are over there right now and it does not make it easy to talk about. While I'm sitting here in my air-conditioned room at home, they are over there doing the job they signed up for (your job is whatever they tell you it is) and so I do not want to dishonor their courage nor their sacrifice.

However, facts are facts. It is clear that there was more behind the scenes than we knew about or were led to believe. As for impeachment, I'm not sure it's a good practice to get into to begin looking for crap to impeach all of our President's. Many, many past Presidents have made similar mistakes including Lyndon B. Johnson with the Vietnam War and perhaps even Harry S. Truman with the dropping of the atomic bombs. Today that would not be acceptable, of course, but then not many could question the decision. Today people would be finding a reason to impeach him.

I guess here is the point. If you go looking for trouble and for reasons to impeach a President, we could find dirt on just about every President out there. Clinton's case is simply a matter of lying under oath and that the chief citizen of the United States should not do that, however, I do agree the trial was directed more towards his personal life than anything which was simply not fair. But the fact remains that Clinton did lie under oath in a U.S. court and the penalty for any citizen that does that is very clear in our system of law. Clinton violated that....and with that I have a problem.

But I do not agree that Clinton was necessarily a bad President nor deserving of the media mess he received. As for his decision with the Monica thing, well that is his business....but it is the business of the United States if he lied under oath in a court of law. It is unfortunate that some did not stick to the facts and instead attempted to attack him.
Not exactly our most noble moment in American Politics.

I hope we don't go down this road with every President in the future. He does something we don't like, we look for a way to remove him legally. That's not what our system is about.
If Bush manipulated the system then he was wrong. But he is not the first person nor the last person in power that has or will do that. Clinton did much the same, as did Reagan, and on down the line.

So I don't think it's a healthy practice to begin pointing fingers at every President for offenses that, in past times, would not have been considered grounds for impeachment. We will see what happens with our next President. But since we are in 'impeachment mode' I think we will begin to see a very unfortunate pattern evolve in our political system.
Time will tell.

We've found no WMDs,

Yes we have - just not in amounts large enough to be considered, "stockpiles". And once again - Saddam had plenty of time to ship the WMDs elsewhere and there is evidence that he very well may have.

the people of Iraq hate us

They're not the majority.

On top of that why go to the U.N. if you decided to use military action before going to the U.N.?

My personal opinion is, "Why go to the U.N.?"

Yes we have - just not in amounts large enough to be considered, "stockpiles".

I must have missed a, uh, major news story somewhere because all I've ever heard were reports of possible findings that were later retracted or that weren't actually findings of weapons. Given that they are, after all, weapons of mass destruction, it doesn't really seem like having a "stockpile" of them is really necessary for it to be important. But I could be wrong; do you have a source?

Edit: So, looking into this a bit more, the ever-helpful wikipedia points out two finds: a shell containing mustard gas and an IED made from a shell containing sarin. It's not entirely clear that these weapons came from Saddam's regime, but we did find the in Iraq.

I recall artillery shells loaded with Sarin nerve gas. I'll find the source in the morning.

Civil War.

*yawn*
*shuts down computer*