There has been a
spam email making the rounds (which cropped up on AARs blog the other day as well) which I cobbled together a point by point rebuttal. Hopefully people will find this useful and might avail themselves of this to de-spin the spam email making the rounds whenever they encounter it.
This already de-bunked chain letter (edited to point to cherry-picked Iraq causalities instead of the original version which talked about 9/11) has been making the rounds lately. I won't get into the casualty count, but this sophistry about crime rates in Detroit vs. US combat deaths in Iraq (again choosing the lowest ebb in the violence thus far to hype) is total BS. More people died of heart attacks in 1945 than US losses in WWII... so by the tortured logic of this spam letter... World Wars are no big deal.
"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."
That's true, and FDR never tried to convince us it was the Germany that attacked us! If we want to make an analogy of Iraq, the global war on terrorism and 9/11... to WWII, it would be more analogous to say we should have invaded Mexico after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor because Germany was a part of it... and then do it.
That said, within a few days of Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the U.S. then we declared war on Germany. It should also be noted that numerous of American flagged merchant ships
HAD been attacked by Germany for years, we had America aviators fighting the Japanese in China (the Flying Tigers), and Germany and Japan had been fighting a war against our allies for years as well. Furthermore (and more salient) Iraq never attacked us, was incapable of attacking us, and had nothing to do with global terrorism, al-Qaeda or 9/11.
So to bring this up is utterly pointless as they bear
ZERO relation to one another.
"Harry 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 18,334 per year."
Harry Truman did finish WWII but he hardly started the Korean War. Soviet-armed North Korean armies poured over the internationally-recognized border into an unprepared South Korea. We were obligated by treaty to help defend South Korea. Though this certainly shoots holes in the often trotted out GOP refrain that Reagan single-handedly defeated communism. Seems Democratic and Republican presidents across several decades were standing strong against communist expansion.
"John F. Kennedy... started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us."
President Kennedy did not start the Vietnam war. It was a continuation of the civil war that followed the French withdrawal and the first President to put US military personal on the ground in Vietnam was Dwight Eisenhower. Though this is another example of different administrations from different parties looking to contain communist expansion, so much for Reagan's mythical solo acclaim of "defeating of communism".
"L.B. Johnson... turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year."
Hard to argue there. But this is history in 20-20 hindsight. What were his options? Should he have allowed the North Vietnamese to take over South Vietnam in 1965?
I would agree that Vietnam, like Iraq was a colossal mistake. So not sure how pointing to a conflict which was a colossal mistake somehow alleviates the culpability of this administration for launching an equally colossal mistake in Iraq.
"Bill Clinton... went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent, Bosnia never attacked us.."
That conflict was fought by NATO within NATO's operational area, i.e. Europe.
"He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing."
100% fiction. Usama bin Laden was never offered. This urban legend has been throughly debunked time and time again. In 1996, Usama bin Laden was based in Sudan. Under the influence of the radical Islamist Hassan Al Turabi, Sudan had become a safe haven for violent Islamist extremists. By 1995, the U.S. government had connected bin Laden to terrorists as an important terrorist financier. Since 1979, the secretary of state has had the authority to name state sponsors of terrorism, subjecting such countries to significant economic sanctions. Sudan was so designated in 1993. In February 1996, for security reasons, U.S. diplomats left Khartoum. International pressure further increased as the regime failed to hand over three individuals involved in a 1995 attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on the regime.
Diplomacy had an effect. In exchanges beginning in February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching U.S. officials asking what they could do to ease the pressure. During the winter and spring of 1996, Sudan's defense minister visited Washington and had a series of meetings with representatives of the U.S. government. To test Sudan's willingness to cooperate on terrorism, the United States presented eight demands to their Sudanese contact.
The one that concerned bin Laden was a request for intelligence information about bin Laden's contacts in Sudan. These contacts with Sudan, which went on for years, have become a source of controversy. Former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel bin Laden to the U.S. Administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. The only "offer" was word of a back-channel "offer" to extradite Usama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia, but they (Saudi Arabia) refused.
It should be noted that Sudan did offer to expel bin Laden to Saudi Arabia but asked the Saudis to pardon him. U.S. officials became aware of these secret discussions certainly by March 1996. The evidence suggests that the Saudi government wanted bin Laden expelled from Sudan, but would not agree to pardon him. The Saudis did not want bin Laden back in their country at all.
U.S. officials also wanted bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They knew the Sudanese were considering it. The U.S. government did not ask Sudan to render him into U.S. custody. According to Samuel Berger, who was then the deputy national security adviser, the interagency counterterrorism security group, CSG, chaired by Richard Clarke, had a hypothetical discussion about bringing bin Laden to the United States.
In that discussion, a Justice Department representative reportedly said there was no basis for bringing him to the United States since there was no way to hold him here absent an indictment. Berger adds that in 1996 he was not aware of any intelligence that said bin Laden was responsible for any act against an American citizen. No rendition plan targeting bin Laden, who was still perceived as a terrorist financier, was requested by or presented to senior policy-makers during 1996.
Yet both Berger and Clarke also said the lack of an indictment made no difference. Instead, they said the idea was not worth pursuing because there was no chance that Sudan would ever turn bin Laden over to a hostile country. If Sudan had been serious, Clarke said, the United States would have worked something out. However, the U.S. government did approach other countries hostile to Sudan and bin Laden about whether they would take bin Laden. None were apparently interested.
No handover took place. Under pressure to leave, bin Laden worked with the Sudanese government to procure a safe passage and possibly funding for his departure. In May 1996, bin Laden and his associates leased an Ariana Airlines jet and traveled to Afghanistan, stopping to refuel in the United Arab Emirates. Approximately two days after his departure, the Sudanese informed the U.S. government that bin Laden had left.
To recap:
The Sudanese government offered to arrest Usama bin Laden and place him in Saudi custody. Not American custody. Barton Gellman of the Washington Post reported on how the Clinton administration had tried to get the Saudis to accept custody of bin Laden. But they refused. There was no offer to turn bin Laden over to the U.S.
Let’s not forget that at this time Sudan had offered to help in the fight against terrorism, but only if the U.S. lifted the economic sanctions, imposed in response to their genocidal campaign against Christians in their country. Trying to get the sanctions lifted, Sudan repeatedly offered to share its intelligence about Islamic terrorists with the U.S. However, the FBI and the CIA concluded that Sudan was not providing anything useful on bin Laden or al-Qaeda.
"Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions."
True, and Clinton tried to take him out in Afghanistan when it became clear that he and his group were responsible for attacking our embassies in Africa, and the GOP screamed "wag the dog" and "no war for Monica". To bad the Bush administration did not chose to do a single solitary thing to take out al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. Not one thing. In fact the Bush administration refused to re-fly then armed Predator drones in the summer of 2001 which could have taken out Usama bin Laden.
"In the two years since terrorists attacked us President George Bush has ... liberated two countries"
'Liberated' maybe (being *VERY* generous there). Occupied, definitely. We now have massive Army forces in those two countries. National Guard men and women have been torn from their lives here and sent to fight shadowy enemies in these countries with no end in sight. The cost cannot yet be counted. Recruiting for our armed forces is understandably down.
"crushed the Taliban"
Nope. the Taliban have regrouped and are gaining power again in Afganistan because Bush shifted resources and focus on invading Iraq. The Taliban may have been ousted, but it has sprung back with a vengeance, and women in Afghanistan are hardly feeling liberated.
Regional tribal warlords rule most of the country, and opium production is up to pre-Taliban levels. Another clear indication of the downward spiral in Afghanistan, "Doctors Without Borders" has had to pull its personal out of the country because of concerns for safety, and they operated and had better security to operate under the Taliban.
"crippled al-Qaida"
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which said in its Strategic Survey 2003-4, al-Qaeda has actually grown and now numbers some 18,000 members world-wide.
"put nuclear inspectors in Libya"
Which was negotiated, not brought about by unilateral military action. Libya's cooperation with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA is credited by most of the people involved (not politicians or the press) to long-term, persistent diplomacy and delicate negotiations over the past decade.
"...Iran"
IAEA inspectors were put in by the UN, not by Bush. Inspectors were also in Iraq before the invasion, though they had to be pulled because Bush launched the war.
"...and North Korea"
Funny, one could claim that Clinton also managed to get IAEA inspectors into North Korea in the mid 90s via the UN as well. There were IAEA inspectors in NK until Bush called Kim Jong Il a pygmy and named NK to the Axis of Evil. NK then kicked them out. As far as I know, NK hasn't allowed inspectors in since.
But the salient point is that Bush didn't put nuke inspectors in Iran, NK or Libya, the UN's IAEA did. The IAEA is the same agency that Bush and Cheney attempted to discredit during the runnup to the Iraq invasion because the IAEA Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, stated that there was no credible evidence that Iraq had nuclear weapons or had reconstituted any of it's pre-1990 nuclear programs, and correctly countered the false claims of Iraq attempting to purchase uranium form Africa made by Colin Powell and the administration days before to the UN, on forged documents and circular "intelligence" based on the same forged documents.
"without firing a shot"
Exactly, see how working through multilateral international bodies like the UN and the IAEA is a good thing and we don't have to invade countries, kill tens of thousands, waste hundreds of billions of dollars and actually weaken our position to stop WMD proliferation?
This of course is precisely what Bush
DIDN'T do, and instead worked in direct contradiction of these bodies and methods to start and unjustified, wholly misguided war.
"and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people."
If this is referring the the mass graves in Iraq, you might want to re-think bringing that up, since those mass graves are mainly form the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s when we backed Iraq, sold Iraq chemical weapons, shared intel for their use and were allies with Iraq, with full knowledge of the civilian deaths.
To brand Saddam Hussien a "terrorist" for this, means that Reagan, Bush Sr. (and Donald Rumsfeld) are all terrorist supporters. Likewise, I would point out that throughout the 90s, Dick Cheney as CEO of Halliburton got around sanctions to business with Saddam Hussien. So by the standards of this chain letter our current VP is a supporter of terrorism.
"Along with many other terrorists who followed his same example."
Name one.
"The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking,"
No, we rightly complain that this war (Iraq) was a mistake that never should have been started, was ill-conceived war of choice, with no exit strategy or planning to win the peace.
"but... It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound."
Nobody ever said our military is not the best trained, best equipped fighting force on the planet. Clinton's military (there were
ZERO substantive changes made to the military under Bush) has performed spectacularly in combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. But there is more to winning a war than successfully toppling a third world military.. you have to secure the peace. Which is a very suspect proposition at this point because of short-sighted ill-conceived planning, and a wholly war which should never have been launched in the first place.
But the salient point is, that we have lost far more after initial military combat operations ended than during them, and there is no end in sight. So to crow about the collapse of the regime is misguided at best.
"That was a 51 day operation."
We have lost more troops since initial combat operations ended. We have more troops in country now than during major combat operations and we see no end in sight. This is not even close to being over which would be required to determine a length of the war.
"We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records."
Wrong.
Though the funny thing is that there are really Rose Law firm billing records, and there was nothing illegal in them. Unlike the nonexistent WMDs. Though it is very telling that this letter equates law firm billing records being pursued in a political witch-hunt as the same level of severity and need for due consideration prior to sending a nation into war. Guess the author (and those who pass this on) think hunting and smearing the Clinton's is a more pressing need.
"It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick."
Besides the gross smearing of Ted Kennedy over a tragic car accident when he was a young man, this is factually inaccurate. Though again, nobody ever said our military is not the best trained, best equipped fighting force on the planet. Clinton's military (there were ZERO changes made to the military under Bush) has performed spectacularly in combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!!!!"
Yet another glowing endorsement of American democracy! To bad this also is irrelevant to anything.
A U.S. soldier does more thinking before 6 AM than that emailer does in a month!
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