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Discuss the US Presidential Election & the War
With under a week to go, we're opening up discussions on the US Presidential Election. Yesterday we discussed
the economy. Today we take on one of the other major election topics: The War. From the actual wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to foreign policy issues related to potential threats like North Korea, Russia, and Iran, how do the candidates stack up?
Let's define "The enemy":
9/11: Al Qaeda, and a month later the Taliban
late 2002/2003: Saddam/Baathists
2004 on: Shiite/Suni Militias, Al Sadr, etc. etc.
Sure Saddam was a POS leader, but he was probably better than Kim Jong Il is and we before going into Iraq we didn't have to fight 5 fronts at the same time while burning a F'in huge hole in our national budget.
If Duyba had left "the enemy" to simply Al Qaeda, we'd not have spent untold billions in Iraq, our international relations would be less strained, we'd have 4000+ less war dead (Not mentioning the tens and tens of thousands of soldiers with mental/physical problems), tens of thousands of less Iraqi dead,etc.
You see where I'm going?
- Obama's lack of experience -- if he is elected, the 4 year presidential term will be the longest job he's ever held
Just wanted to quash a little bit of FUD, here. Obama was a constitutional law professor for twelve years and a state senator for seven years.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
That definition makes winning pretty close to impossible, I'd say. We've installed the democratic government -- now we just have to stay until the voters of Iraq stop electing the "wrong" leaders, right?
A democratic Iraq is a threat to our allies by definition. Our continued presence isn't going to make all those Iraqi voters suddenly fall in love with Israel.
If the U.S. wanted a democracy in Iraq, it is done. If they wanted a pro-America government in Iraq, they should have installed a pro-America dictator.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
Obama said in 2002: "I know that invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst rather than best impulses in the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars, I am opposed to dumb wars."
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If they wanted a pro-America government in Iraq, they should have installed a pro-America dictator.
They tried that already and it seems to have backfired.
Stupid dictators not doing what they're told to.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Actually, spending the money on us would be stupid. Because its all loans from china and other countries who want to see us farther in debt. Balancing the economy and NOT spending money we don't have would make a hell of alot more sense than taking one massive debt generator and renaming it "for the people of america" instead of "for the people of iraq". In either case, we go bankrupt.
Sigh. Nice job conflating Iraq and 9/11. As has been shown time and time again, there was no plausible link between the two.
The invasion of Iraq will no doubt be regarded as the USA's worst foreign policy disaster of the modern era. The Bush administration still has not given a consistent reason for it. In the words of Kevin Tillman:
My personal belief is that the whole thing stems from Bush trying to settle a family score, gain some political capital as a "wartime president", and (while he was at it) grab a lot of Iraqi oil for his buddies.
The Battle of Antietam (also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the South), fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek, as part of the Maryland Campaign, was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with about 23,000 casualties. ------ Casualty estimates from the battle vary widely. The official U.S. account lists 80,987 American casualties, while other estimates range from 70,000 to 104,000. Most of the American casualties occurred within the first three days of battle, when two of the U.S. 106th Infantry Divisionâ(TM)s three regiments were forced to surrender. The Battle of the Bulge was the bloodiest of the battles that U.S. forces experienced in World War II; the 19,000 American dead were unsurpassed by those of any other engagement ------------ 4,119 dead as of July 15th 2008. As of March 2008 there were 8,914 wounded requiring medical air transport. 20,416 wounded did not require medical air transport. Of all the wounded 13,109 were unable to return to duty within 72 hours. Medical air transport was required for an additional 8,273 for non-hostile injuries, and for 23,052 for diseases or other medical conditions. That last one is from the current FOUR YEARS in Iraq.
WW2 is justifiably cited that way, because the government forced a large number of previously existing companies, (ford, GM etc.) to stop what they were doing and produce war goods. in order to produce that many goods, they had to hire more people. US taxes and bond money pretty much went to pay the wages of a staggering amount of the country.
currently, arms and armor are made by a small subset of companies that specialize in esoteric tools of war. they have fantastic contracts and much of the money ends up in the hands of the corporate management. if not the war profiteer.
also, remember that the plague is "cited as a major force" for starting the rennaissance. in both cases it had a lot to do with thinning out the population. same amount of money, fewer people to share it with...
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Note that Kamerschen didn't pen this. See his website. Also, there's a difference between taking all of someone's revenue, and taking a certain percentage. The discussion is around what the percentage is.
Nice strawman, though.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
not just Republican supporters in business. Pelosi's husband is making money off the war too.
From this side of the pond, it appears that the Brits are bending over backwards to appease even some radical elements of Islam in their midst, allowing Sharia law in various places and half-fearing possible rioting.
I'll give you the "half-fearing possible rioting" bit, but the concessions made to Sharia law are exactly the same concessions the Brits have made for Orthodox Jews and their Beth Din Courts.
I'm not saying either was a good idea, but once the British government set the precedent that a religious institution can setup a parallel system of binding arbitration using religious rules, it was inevitable that someone else is going to follow suit.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Wow....that's just....wow. Let's see here....
Wow, he knows this guy? Holy cow. Imagine if he had donated $800,000 to this guy, I bet that would sink his chances to be president. Man, that would be amazing if a presidential candidate did that. Oh..um, wait a minute, it appears that Senator McCain may have done that actually: McCain also has ties to Khalidi through a group that Khalidi helped found 15 years ago. The Center for Palestine Research and Studies has received more than $800,000 from an organization that McCain chairs. Well, now I guess you can't vote for him either.
McCain has apparently been endorsed by Al Queda. You know what? Neither one of them have anything to do with nutjobs crawling out of the woodwork and talking about them. I don't hold the Hamas thing against Obama, and I don't hold the Al Queda thing against McCain.
We're taking Qadhafi's word for things now? So when Qadhafi tells us that the U.S. is an evil nation and it should perish, are you on board with that too, or just when he says something you find politically useful?
Yes, actually, when you record everything that someone says every time they speak you eventually catch them saying something that they didn't mean to say. Recently McCain was speaking in Pennsylvania, where he suggested that the Democrats were saying Pennsylvanians are racist. His comment was "And I couldn't agree with them more". Clearly he didn't mean to say that, but in your view he apparantly did mean it, and it was a "Freudian slip". You know what though, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and a mistake is just a mistake.
Umm, psst...Hey, superyooser. Obama isn't an arab. I know, the name thing can be confusing, really, but he's really not actually arabic.
Okay, being worried about Obama
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.