Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

his administration knew Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction- their intelligence agencies told them this- and he ignored all the actual experts and ordered said evidence fabricated by yes men in order to get the authorization for military force to invade Iraq in a war of aggression in which that country was destroyed and millions of people were displaced and as many as 1 million Iraqis died. Not to mention his administration approved and executed all kinds of highly illegal torture and rendition programs. his administration gave billions of dollars worth of no-bid non-compete contracts to defense contractors during the occupation of Iraq & Afghanistan- including contracts worth over $1 billion to the company his Vice President used to be the CEO of. wtf are you smoking here. that was not incompetence, that was outright lies, corruption, and lawlessness.

All correct.

I haven't traveled outside the US much

probably a spot on the west coast of Mexico like Mazatlán or Puerto Vallarta
Where I've been in Canada way too cold - Thunder Bay and Kenora

I could prolly get along OK in a small town near Vancouver.  My brother and most others seem to like that area.
I assume about as liberal as Seattle

Copenhagen and others would be a LONG flight home to visit friends and family or attend a CFB game

I wouldn't be leaving here unless everything really collapsed.  And if that happened, probably nearly everywhere else would be in bad shape also.

I suppose the US might not collapse economically but the government became unbearable for me.  My daughter seems to be in that camp already.

I'm not.  So, it's a hypothetical.

Some folks claim places like Costa Rica are nice, but they are one revolution away from being not.

They've had a stable government for a long time.

his administration knew Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction- their intelligence agencies told them this- and he ignored all the actual experts and ordered said evidence fabricated by yes men in order to get the authorization for military force to invade Iraq

This simply isn't true.  They didn't "know".  There were people in intelligence who thought they did and people who thought they didn't and the consensus was that they DID.  

This isn't a partisan thing, Clinton (before Bush) bombed Iraq on the basis of their alleged WMD program.  Clinton didn't bomb Iraq on the basis of "evidence fabricated by yes men" on Bush's order and we absolutely KNOW this because when Clinton bombed Iraq, Bush was Governor of Texas and in no position to do so.  

I think the strongest evidence is that Hillary Clinton voted FOR the AUMF.  She obviously KNEW that she was going to run for President and if she had believed that Iraq had no WMD then she would have voted against it.  She was in a great position to know since her husband had previously been President.  Think about it, if Hillary had voted against the Iraq AUMF, what would Obama's issue have been against her in the 2008 Democratic Primaries?  It is that simple, if Hillary votes no on the Iraq AUMF, she gets elected President in 2008.  

Hillary voted for the AUMF because she, and by extension her husband the former President, believed that Iraq had WMD.  

Simply saying "Bush lied" lets our intelligence agencies off the hook without investigation and that, IMHO, is a humongous mistake.  The Democrats, as the "loyal opposition" should have held hearings about this, LOTS of hearings.  Bring in the people who told Clinton and later Bush that Iraq had WMD and grill them.  

We spend BILLIONS on intelligence and there is this belief that our intelligence agencies are omniscient like in the movies but the reality, from my view, is that our intelligence agencies more closely resemble this:

They didn't see the collapse of the USSR coming.  They thought Iraq had WMD.  What are they doing with the BILLIONS that we spend on them?  

I agree most believed Saddam had at least chemical weapons.  He had used them before, it's a bit of a mystery what happened to them.

And it is a mystery that SHOULD have been thoroughly investigated.  I've presented it this way:

The US intelligence community widely believed that Saddam had WMD (at least chemical as you noted since the nuclear evidence was sketchier).  

The US invaded Iraq, took over, thoroughly searched for WMD and didn't find any.  

The two above facts mean that one of the following is true, either:

• Saddam didn't have WMD and our intelligence community is clueless, or
• The WMD that Saddam DID have went somewhere and we never figured out where.  

Either of those two should scare the crap out of us.