in the wrong era. Soundly refuting
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Audacity of Truth
"Diplomacy":
"People are saying what in the world is going on with North Carolina, we look like Mississippi." - NC Gov. Bev Perdue (D) on the passage of Amendment One, 5-11-12
Joe Klein feels the hate
Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein is feeling the hate from the left these days. He’s against the Iraq war, against the idea of a troop surge, and can’t stand the administration. Well then, what’s the problem? you may ask. Here it is: he wants us to win in Iraq. He’s also very critical of war plan critics in the press, like the NYT’s Paul Krugman. Klein wrote yesterday:
I’m afraid I’m going to get cranky about this: The Democrats who oppose the so-called “surge” are right. But they have to be careful not to sound like ill-informed dilettantes when talking about it.
The latest to make a fool of himself is Paul Krugman of the New York Times, who argues that those who favor the increase in troops are either cynical or delusional. Mostly the latter. Delusional neocons like Bill Kristol and Fred Kagan, to be precise. But what about retired General Jack Keane–whom Krugman doesn’t mention–and the significant number of military intellectuals who have favored a labor-intensive counterinsurgency strategy in Baghdad for the past three years? They are serious people. They may be wrong about Iraq now, reflexively trying to complete a mission that has been lost, but they are not delusional. They may be wrong about Iraq now, reflexively trying to complete a mission that has been lost, but they are not delusional. The counterinsurgency doctrine they published in 2006 is exactly what the U.S. military should be doing in places like Afghanistan.
[...]
Liberals won’t ever be trusted on national security until they start doing their homework.
Check the comments to that post. It would seem that Klein committed numerous “nonos” with the anti-war far left: 1) he attacked liberal icon Paul Krugman, 2) he slammed liberals for not being more informed on the issue, and 3) he wants us to win the war in Iraq.
In a follow-up post last night, Klein responded to his critics:
The illiberal left just hates it when I point out that the Democratic Party’s naivete on national security–and the left wing tendency to assume every U.S. military action abroad is criminal–just aren’t very helpful electorally. The fact that I’ve been opposed to the Iraq war ever since this 2002 article in Slate just makes it all the more aggravating. But it’s possible to have been against the war and to hope for the best in Iraq. I’d bet that the overwhelming majority of Americans who now oppose the war are praying for a turn for the better in Iraq. Listening to the leftists, though, it’s easy to assume that they are rooting for an American failure.
And so a challenge to those who slagged me in their comments. Can you honestly say the following:
Even though I disagree with this escalation, I am hoping that General Petraeus succeeds in calming down Baghdad.
Does the thought even cross your mind? As for me, it’s easy–I’ve been rooting for U.S. success ever since the invasion because, after the overpowering arrogance and stupidity that led to this disaster, we owe some peace and stability to the Iraqis and the region.
Klein’s just hit on what so many anti-war leftists (including certain members of Congress) don’t want to admit: they don’t want us to succeed in Iraq. Success in Iraq would not just be a victory for America, but also for President Bush’s policies in the war on terror, and that doesn’t sit well with the Bush-haters in the Democratic party who have portrayed him as a bumbling, inept Commander in Chief.
Back in December of 2005, I quoted a post of Steve Verdon’s at Outside the Beltway, which I thought summed up what the anti-war Democrats’ attitude on Iraq perfectly. Verdon wrote:
Frankly, the Democrats tactic of saying we can’t win in Iraq strikes me as precisely the wrong approach to the problem. If the Democrats “win” on this one the result is that we lose. We lose in Iraq and we quite possibly degrad[e] our ability to prosecute the war on terrorism in other parts of the world. Maybe that is what the Democratic party leadership wants, but it doesn’t look like a very good strategy for making the U.S. safer…which ironically is one of the Democrats complaints about invading Iraq in the first place.
He was right then, and even more right today. If America loses in Iraq, the Democratic party ‘wins.’ Klein is clearly a liberal, but he nevertheless pushes and hopes for American success in Iraq. It’s not about party to him, it’s about winning. Unfortunately, all too many other Democrats don’t hold his position and equate being an advocate of winning in Iraq (in spite of being against the war) to being a Bush shill.
It’s a sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party who are now, unfortunately, the new majority in Washington, DC. The only way they ‘win’ on the issue is if we lose in Iraq. Think about it.
Related: Speaking of anti-war Bush-haters, check out this imbeach, I mean, “Impeach Bush” rally held a few days ago at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. Note how the word “Bonfire” is outlined in red in the first pic 
(Hat tip: See-Dubya, guest blogging at Michelle Malkin’s)
Flashback:
RSS feed for comments on this post.
ST. Or the war in Yugoslavia waged at 15,000 feet. It was necessary? How was Haiti in our strategic interest?
Let me eliminate all the mind-reading for you.
I as a Democrat and a liberal don’t like Joe Klein because:
a) he was a cheerleader for the Iraq invasion, when I and many of my other friends knew better.
b) now that it’s obvious the invasion of Iraq was a disaster, Joe Klein is trying to change his tune and say he *wasn’t* for the invasion of Iraq,
c) and worst of all, now that he’s pretending he was against the invasion, he’s still criticizing other liberals for being against the invasion, because they’re being too ‘shrill’ about it or something.
As if being against something is only acceptable if you’re properly polite about it, and don’t hold Joe Klein accountable.
I also don’t want the US to lose, and I don’t want soldiers to die for nothing.
But if the US is going to lose, then I don’t want soldiers to die so that Bush can run out the clock and hand the mess to someone else, pretending that he would have won.
If you want to actually understand why a Liberal would feel this way, read this article:
LINK
“1999 war games foresaw problems in Iraq
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government conducted a series of secret war games in 1999 that anticipated an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue.”
Get what that means?
The best military experts in the US’ employ determined that Iraq would take at least FOUR TIMES the soldiers we have there now – and even then it would be iffy.
So there is NO CHANCE we can win with the amount of soldiers we have now – under the best of conditions.
Therefore let’s stop marching our sons and daughters forward into a spinning saw.
Wow, that must be that liberal compassion I keep hearing about.
Bingo, right on the nose!
These same “compassionate” liberals are the ones making all the Vietnam references, how we should bug out like we did there. Well, the often overlooked facts are that the disgraceful abandonment of Vietnam resulted in 3-4 MILLION dead in SE Asia!!! I know those are small potatoes to those of their heroes, like Stalin and Mao, but cripes, millions dead, and that’s the kind of debacle they are longing for again.
They care about casualties only in the abstract sense that they can use them as arguments, when no longer useful for that, after the war is lost, then they care nothing. It’s the same liberal “compassion” that lets children die of malaria in Africa by the millions rather than abandon a junk science based ban on DDT. All so they can pat themselves on the back because they are the only ones who really “care.”
Seems telling that the liberals are in here arguing what the definition of “lose” when you point out they want to lose in Iraq. No no, it’s “redeployment” or some such drivel, right out of Orwellian Newspeak. Same as arguing what “sex” is, or what the meaning of “is” is. Hide behind changing terms and feints of language to hide the fact that you want defeat just to teach Bush a lesson, regardless of how much damage it does to the country or the world. BDS gone rampant and haywire.
Nope, Sister’s not mistaken, ME. I meant exactly what I said, but reserve a special note of disgust for those people on the left who never wanted us to win to begin with. The increase in the number of people who want a timetable for withdrawal includes people who USED to support this war who now think it can’t be won. There is a difference in those people and the Bush haters who’d despise the man no matter what he did, and who can’t put their hatred aside in order to be a part of the SOLUTION (winning) rather than the PROBLEM (losing).
Joe Klein pegged it right.
My son is in the Army, currently stationed in Ramadi and I have a very personal interest in this. How many here who believe we can “win” in Iraq can say the same?
God bless you and your son, and please thank him for his service to our country!
That being said, in 2004 I resigned from my police department and took a job with a civilian contractor training Iraqi police. I was at a military base in Taji and I worked alongside U.S. soldiers helping to train the police around Baghdad. I spent 14 months there and made many friends, Iraqi and American. In Dec. 2005 while traveling back to the base from Baghdad the vehicle I was driving was hit with an IED. I lost both my legs below the knee and am now going through physcial therapy in an attempt to go back to police work. So, I like to think that I have a personal interest in this and I do think we can win. I think we can achieve the medium term goals, but I do agree that the long term goals need to be achieved mainly by the Iraqi people and it’s government. Yet, if we pull out too soon and the government collapses, how can we expect the long term goals to be reached.
I do care about the troops.
Gosh, I guess we’ll just have to take your word for it, huh barracuda? So instead of commenting on the damage that the sanctions were doing, you accuse me of not caring about the troops? Typical liberal tactic. As far as the Iraqi children. I routinely had candy and toys sent from home to hand out to the kids. I played soccer with the kids whenever I could and gave a few of them some money whenever I could. I participated in a shoe giveaway with the soldiers that I worked with and made it my goal to leave a good impression with those children since they will be the ones who will be in charge someday. Several of the soldiers I have worked with keep in touch, visit, and I have even helped them get jobs in law enforcement.
Now, I know this may not be as much as you ever did, but I think it entitles me to a little bit better perspective on what goes on over there. I know I’m not like Richard Belzer who reads alot of newspapers on the subject, but I think I can comment with some confidence on the situation there.
Bravo, NC, and thank you for your service
As satisfying as it ought to be to see the insanity of Bush and the neocons exposed for all to see, I find it hard to take much satisfaction. After all, my primary motivation for disliking them and hoping to see them discredited was to save the nation from the damage that they were likely to do. But it has come too late; at this point, all of my worst fears have been realized. The magnitude of the disaster, both for US interests and for Iraq, completely saps any pleasure I might have taken from being able to say, “I told you so.”
I even find it hard to oppose the escalation, even though I fully expect it to fail, and that the ultimate result will be the same as if we had pulled out, but with greater loss of American life. Still, after the price that Iraq has paid for our botched conduct of the war, it almost seems like we are morally obligated to try, even though it appears hopeless.
Joe Klein is a dishonest fool to claim – as he does – that liberals either hate America or want to lose in Iraq. This is probably the lamest of all of the strawman arguments that conservative commentators have attempted to pass off. I can respect either conservatives or liberals who are up-front about what they believe and defend their position with honesty and fairness. I don’t know if Klein is just a lying shill, or if he’s actually seriously deluded, but I don’t know any mainstream liberal (and I’m talking about the vast majority of all liberals) who wants us to fail in Iraq.
Sister, why don’t you and Joe put your reputations where your mouths are and come up with a list of all the liberals you can demonstrate have made statements that indicate that they want us to lose. No attempting to read other peoples’ minds allowed – provide the actual evidence and compile the statistics. Show us all of the supposed liberals who want us to lose in Iraq or shut the hell up.
“Sister, why don’t you and Joe put your reputations where your mouths are and come up with a list of all the liberals you can demonstrate have made statements that indicate that they want us to lose. No attempting to read other peoples’ minds allowed – provide the actual evidence and compile the statistics.”
I’ve already posted my answer here.
“Show us all of the supposed liberals who want us to lose in Iraq or shut the hell up.”
You can take your orders to shut up and shove ‘em, jerk!
Colin: “OK, so, no, you cannot provide a link of any Congressman stating they want us to fail in Iraq.”
Someone doesn’t have to SAY something in order to get a point across.
It’s kind of like people who are poorly informed on an issue. They don’t have to say they are for me to know it.
It does not matter what you, or the “Left” (AKA the vast majority of America according to all recent polls) wants… all that matters is the fact that the Iraq war, as prosecuted by the Bush administrations, is, was, and always will be unwinnable. It is the single worst US foreign policy decision in our lifetimes, and it has George W. Bush’s name at the top of the masthead. As such, he deserves the most blame, followed by the Neocon idiots who egged him on, and only then followed by his enablers in Congress.
carolha: “I copied Bush’s definition of winning in Iraq from the like provided above. The document is dated 2003, three long years ago.”
ST: The document is dated November 2005.
Joe Klein is a dishonest fool to claim –
I love it!! They are even turning on each other. What was somebody else posting about conservatives drinking “the Kool aid”?!?
boy, there sure are a lot of “leftists” these days…
LINK
jvf: “It does not matter what you, or the “Left” (AKA the vast majority of America according to all recent polls) wants”
ST: 54% is a “vast majority of America”? Wow – then I guess that means since GWB was elected by 51% of Americans he won over a vast majority of Americans and really did have a mandate. Thanks for clearing that up!
jvf: “boy, there sure are a lot of “leftists” these days…”
ST: Please learn to read very carefully through the comments before commenting further.
“Seems telling that the liberals are in here arguing what the definition of “lose” when you point out they want to lose in Iraq. No no, it’s “redeployment” or some such drivel, right out of Orwellian Newspeak. Same as arguing what “sex” is, or what the meaning of “is” is. Hide behind changing terms and feints of language to hide the fact that you want defeat just to teach Bush a lesson, regardless of how much damage it does to the country or the world. BDS gone rampant and haywire.”
Well said, as always, Sev. It’s like parsing the definition of funding for the war, too. Their ‘logic’, well, defies logic.
Bugger off, creep! –ST
“The document is dated November 2005. ”
who cares when it dates from? Bush is an incoherent fool anyway. He didn’t even know that there were Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq as late as 2003.
61 to 36 (and growing) seems like a vast majority to me.
Learn to read carefully. 54% want a pull out by the end of the year.
So Sister Toldjah – you have no facts or evidence, but it feels right to you that us liberals and Leftists want the US to lose.
Guess what? I think conservatives want to eat anchovies on their pizza because they’re gay.
Now, none of you would come out and SAY this…but I know what you’re thinking. And really you’re not fooling anyone.
no where in the poll I cited does it say anything about 54%….sorry.
also, approval of Bush’s handling of Iraq is 26%. Impressive.
the floor is falling out of support for this disaster. you can spin it any way you want. But it’s true. You people are dead enders.
Well, since we are whipping out the polls now. How about this?
Gallup: Most Americans feel media reporting from Iraq innacurate
So if that’s the case, can’t it be argued that Americans are basing their opinions on innacurate information?
56%, that’s a majority, right?
“no where in the poll I cited does it say anything about 54%….sorry.”
Probably because you didn’t bother to actually read the poll numbers for yourself.
“the floor is falling out of support for this disaster. you can spin it any way you want. But it’s true. You people are dead enders.”
Nah, but one thing’s for certain: you guys are pro-losing. No doubt about it.
Dear Sis,
I suppose one could make the claim that Bush “losing” the war is not a totally bad thing, because clearly if there were any possible way for BushCo to spin the situation as anything better than “not losing”, he would have seen that as validation for his pre-emptive policies, and continued the invasion into Syria, Iran, and who know where, and things would have ended up being far worse than they are even now.
But no one is really making that claim.
So, while many felt that, “Hey, it’s a poor idea to invade, but maybe the intelligence about WMD is right?” (Hah!),they probably believed that, if we did invade, it would at least be with competent leaders.
Now we see the depths of their incompetence, the willfull blindness, the complete lack of understanding of the issues (does Bush now know the difference between Shi’ite and Sunni?), and a post-conflict plan for stabilization (“We don’t do nation-building.”) that never had a chance in hell of succeeding. It is not possible for someone with any understanding at all to see that, win or lose, it is too late for a military victory in Iraq.
BushCo. has no other idea than to keep sacrificing our soldiers while claiming that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Why? To cover his ass, and hope to get lucky, maybe with one of Daddy’s pals handing him a way out. Meanwhile, our soldiers die. Only a “Commander in Chief” who has never done any kind of serious military service, the kind that Bush shirked, could be such a moral cretin as to continue this despicable foolishness so as not to look stupid. Too late.
There may be things that can be done to ameliorate the situation there, but BushCo, his multi-national oil cronies, and his neo-con con-men are not the people to do it.
NOW Bush wants to propose a plan to give the Iraqi people some way to make a living and re-build their country? Where was he three years ago? Oh yeah… that was when Halliburton got all the contracts, for ten times what qualified Iraqi civil engineers were willing to do it for and put their own people to work at the same time. No profit in that, is there, Dick. Who the hell is in charge of this clown-fest, anyway?
Anybody?
Bring home the troops. Now.
Jack Flackett, ex- Sgt.E5 USAR
“So Sister Toldjah – you have no facts or evidence, but it feels right to you that us liberals and Leftists want the US to lose.”
Yes, they do. When they want to cut and run, they don’t want us to win. This is not rocket science.
“Guess what? I think conservatives want to eat anchovies on their pizza because they’re gay.
Now, none of you would come out and SAY this…but I know what you’re thinking. And really you’re not fooling anyone. ”
What a stupid analogy. Reasonable conclusions can be drawn from how people act and what and how they say things. You have no reasonable basis whatsoever for your silly anchovies/gay analogy. I can’t believe you have the audacity to act like because someone hasn’t SAID something that they don’t believe it. I guess because Bush hasn’t ‘admitted’ he didn’t start the war because of oil that means he really didn’t, then, right? I look fwd to the end of that far left assertion promptly, going by your (il)logic.
He didn’t even know that there were Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq as late as 2003.
Good point!! Unlike our new Dem intel chair who didn’t know anything about the group that slaughtered 3,000 Americans on 9/11.
LINK
Gosh I feel safe.
So Sister Toldjah – you have no facts or evidence, but it feels right to you that us liberals and Leftists want the US to lose.
Well, there’s that and the fact that liberals are doing exactly what Osama Bin Laden said America would do. Does it bother you to be part of Al Qaeda’s plan for victory???
“After a few blows, it forgot all about those titles and rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers.”-Osama Bin Laden
“But I plan to speak about the repeated errors your President Bush has committed in comments on the results of your polls that show an overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. But [Bush] has opposed this wish and said that withdrawing troops sends the wrong message to opponents …”-Osama Bin Laden
“I can reply to these errors by saying that war in Iraq is raging with no let up, and operations in Afghanistan are escalating in our favour, thank God, and Pentagon figures show the number of your dead and wounded is increasing not to mention the massive material losses …”-Osama bin Lade
Now, is it me, or do Osama’s quotes bear an uncanny resemblance to some of the posts of our visitors today?
Oh thats ok NC Lefty Democrats have a tendency of meeting with the enemy…
From John Kerry meeting with Syrian President:
or further back when he went to Paris…
Link
to “important Democrats”..
Link
When did it become normal process for Senators to meet with the enemy, to talk?
Don’t we have special envoys for that, and do they not need permissions to do that from either Congress or the President in such meetings where they are possibly getting or trying to get concessions?
What is the normal procedures for meeting with Nations or terrorist groups that the President has said we will not meet with?
Shame on you sanity!!!!!!!
You forgot Kennedy’s dealing with the Soviets at the height of the cold war…..
Link
Let’s not forget Senator Jay Rockefeller and the “Syrian official” he met with in 2002 to inform him about our intentions towards Iraq.
- I noticed none of the “caring” Left-twits responded to my post. Well, sure….thats what you do when your surrender-weasel agenda gets pushed out into the light of day. Cut and run, just like they did in Nam, and just like they’d love to do in Iraq. Isn’t going to happen, but what might happen, is they’ll burry themselves once and for all with the electorate.
- As to the poll nonsense, that is another simple manipulation of words. What the people are upset about is the lack of real progress in Baghdad, and the obstinence of the Iraqui leadership to really step up and take things in their own hands. THAT does not mean the same thing as “cut and run”. But just as they played games from the very begginning, by saying that American dislike of war means they are against fighting back in the WOT, its the same old Marxist “big lie” manipulations all over again, left over from the cold war. Why we don’t just stamp out the Marxist/Socialist menace once and for all in this country, is beyond belief. They are a clear and present danger, every bit as anti-American as the Wahhabists.
- Bang
NC Cop-
much respect to your service for our country. i still disagree with you almost completely, but i do respect the sacrifice you were willing to make for what you believe in.
as far as the sanctions, i was in favor of lifting them as I didn’t think they were doing much good outside of hurting iraqi children and innocent civilians, frankly. however, i doubted there was much chance of that happening. the problem with sanctions, as we can see in N. korea now, and iraq before, is that they rarely achieve the desired goal in countries where the people have no voice; it usually only serves to strengthen the regime. Iraq was a pretty messed up place before the invasion, and it obviously still is now. i am not someone who automatically supported whatever the clinton admin’s policies were.
i think the problem we face now is that we are very divided as a nation, and for those of us who are more liberal, rightly or wrongly, bush has very little credibility, so at this point we simply don;t trust him to do anything. i realize that conservatives are less distrusting, but i think this creates the fundamental dilemma. the right thinks we need to give the prez more of a chance, the left thinks until we get rid of the guy, there is basically nothing we can do that will go right.
Hey Sis…
we’re not “pro-losing”, we’re anti-doing-stupid things in the first place. Such as occupying countries which we don’t understand.
Getting back to the original thread, Joe Klein may be right about many things (He’s against the Iraq war, against the idea of a troop surge, and can’t stand the administration…) but he’s self important and thin-skinned. And anyway, who cares what he thinks?
What’s important is that the Bush administration has cocked everything up so badly that no one trusts him anymore. Even many in right Blogostan are beginning to see that.
I’d argue that many liberals don’t understand America, yet live in it. So, in being anti-doing-stupid things in the first place, I’d suggest moving to a place such as France, Belgium, or the Netherlands. The taxes are high, the willingness to do anything involving force is low, the nanny state mentality is solid – right up a lefty’s alley!
Just so everyone knows how full of BS Joe Klien is, he has been on the talkshows claiming that he was against the war, but now that we are in it…well. how about a quote from Feb. 22, 2003: “This is a really tough decision. War may well be the right decision at this point. In fact, I think it–it’s–it–it probably is.” Klien went around for months aquiesing, like the rest of the d**kless “left wing” media. anyways, now that we are in this complete pile of crap, is leaving the weak thing to do. no, going was the weak thing to do. it was driven by fear, and that same fear is what is keeping us there. in vietnam, we had the same claim. If we leave, the place will go to sh*t, and then the dominos will begin to fall. if we pull out of Iraq, there will be a civil war, with the saudis and iranians vying for influence and paying for it. it will be bloody and end in a dictator and a small genocide. thank god we got rid of that dictator, only to start the selection process and genocidal rage all over again.
Please watch your language. –ST
Is that supposed to constitute a ‘flip flop’ or ‘lie’? Don’t think so.
Man, you guys really don’t handle criticism well.
I still support the troops and their mission. I think we can still win, but at the moment, I am against more troops for one simple reason:
More troops won’t help if they can’t fight like soldiers are supposed to.
It’s truly sad when Ethiopia, a nation that can’t even feed itself, shows the CIC of the US military how it’s done. Stop being nice. Stop giving a darn about world opinion and start killing the enemy. If the enemy hides in a mosque, it becomes a parking lot. If the enemy hides in a home or school, it becomes a fixer upper real quick. If the enemy hides behind civilians, well, I’m sorry, try not to hit them, but you fire away anyway. If you see the enemy, don’t wait for him to shoot, blow his head off. It works. When the people of the region started screaming for the Ethiopians to stop (after all, we can’t humiliate the radical muslims), they picked up the pace and kept going.
If we took off the gloves, we’d kill a lot fewer civilians than the insurgents are and we’d clean up the place. Don’t tell me that we can’t identify the enemy. If the Ethiopians can, we can too. I know we are trying to let the Iraqi’s govern and defend themselves. That is a great long term goal. But the Iraqi police and army would have a much easier time if that happened after we did some major cleaning up.
But there is the problem. W won’t do this. He still has a no first shot policy in the danger zones. Al Sadr is still alive. We ignore Iran and Syria’s involvement. That’s crazy. Shoot the enemy, kill Al Sadr and his minions and put some burning holes in the ground in Terhan and Damascus. When the world complains, give them the Rummmy salute.
When you pound the enemy into goo, you win and other enemies stay away from you. If you do it the moderate way, if you try to negotiate and be nice, you get what we are getting. You get what Israel is getting.
If we are not going to fight to win, if we are going to play the UN game of trying to do war nicely, we will lose. More troops will just give the enemy more targets. We should not send them if we are not going to unleash them. If we are not going to let our men and women fight this like US soliers are capable of, we should bring them home.
Again, I want to win. I want us to succeed. I think, based on the intel, that the decision to go into Iraq was sound. And if you base it on Bosnia (where we still have troops 10 plus years later), the humanitarian reasons were every bit as sound a justification for going in. What has me bothered by it all, is the fact that we don’t let our troops fight, and when they do, we put them on trial. It’s insane and needs to stop.
Have a good night.
ok, it’s dudes like big bang who make it hard for people to take many of the right wing seriously. i am assuming you are a bit older. marxist/socialist menace in america- are you for real, sir? where, pray tell, can such a menace be found? if you are really afraid of that in america, you are truly paranoid delusional. that would really explain a lot of things actually, now that i come to think about it.
happy now? a left twit has responded to you.
You are correct in that the entire document is dated 2005, but the intro is dated 2003. Assuming that the definition of “victory” has not changed, are we closed to it than we were in 2003 or 2005 or are we farther away? It is obvious that we are farther away.
Barracuda,
I understand alot of what you said in your last post toward me. It’s difficult to know what the future holds. Sanctions are not effective, just like you said N. Korea is a great example. I just don’t know what our options were. If we did nothing in Iraq and later he did manage to get a WMD to a terrorist group, would we all be screaming “Why didn’t we see this coming?!”
Were mistakes made in Iraq? You bet. I don’t think anyone will deny that. However, mistakes have been made in every major war that we’ve ever fought. I believe that we did the right thing in Iraq and are continuing to do so. I take every death of a U.S. soldier in Iraq very personally, as I’m sure everyone does. I think we can agree that nobody wants to see anymore U.S. casualties, but regimes like Iraq cannot be “contained” very effectively.
I agree with what chris said as well. I think Bosnia is one of the few things the Clinton administration did right. I fully supported what he did back then and what we are still doing there now. It doesn’t matter to me what party the Pres. represents when it comes to things like that. Clinton intervened in the middle of a civil war and brought peace, through force, as well as without a U.N. mandate or a declaration of war. He brought Milosevic to justice and that was a good thing.
It’s an unfortuante thing but sometimes you just have to fight.
Like Churchill said: “Never never never give up”
“Good point!! Unlike our new Dem intel chair who didn’t know anything about the group that slaughtered 3,000 Americans on 9/11.”
Ah. You mean the Saudis, right?
- The always euridite response of the mentally deficient, where your arguments are 1 talking page deep, and someone with a working brain denudes your self-pompus ideological idea’s. Ad Hominem away baraduca, but all the same, you know your soft Marxist ideas are straight from the mouths of the typical Leftist poly-sci professor. Independent thinking is decidedly not one of the Lefts strengths. The gaggle of the “elitist” sheeples collective.
- Your wimpy, feckless arguments, are as boneheaded as you are. Grow up. What I think most people realize about the minority of idiotarians is that all Congress would have to do is offer life-time deferments to them, and they’d stop squeeking, and whining, and shaking in their shoes.
- Bang
@ ryan..
“I’d argue that many liberals don’t understand America, yet live in it. ”
that is absolutely ridiculous. Maybe you don’t understand what made (notice the past tense) unique among nations.
Ah. You mean the Saudis, right?
Indeed, as well as from the UAE, Egypt, and Lebanon.
Your point?
Maybe you don’t understand what made (notice the past tense) unique among nations.
Your wrong abou the past tense.
Is there any other nation that is so flocked to to live and work in?
Why do we as America have such a problem with illegal immigrants that they are flocking across our borders for a better life and they count in the MILLIONS?
Why is it when I go downtown to the INS building their waiting rooms are packed to capacity with every nationality coming into the US?
NC Cop: I understand alot of what you said in your last post toward me. It’s difficult to know what the future holds. Sanctions are not effective, just like you said N. Korea is a great example. I just don’t know what our options were. If we did nothing in Iraq and later he did manage to get a WMD to a terrorist group, would we all be screaming “Why didn’t we see this coming?!”
Roderick: I am still not getting this about Saddam being the one and only source of terrorists obtaining a nuclear weapon. I am sure with all of the suverelience that Saddam was under by British and American planes and satelites that he would have had a much difficult time slipping a nuke to some terrorist.
I am more concerned about Pakistan which actually has nukes and a leader (dictator) who has a precarious grip on power. But my ultimate concern would be the ‘loose nukes’ from the old Soviet Union. No one knows how much of this material there was to begin with so no one knows how much goes unaccounted.
NC Cop: Were mistakes made in Iraq? You bet. I don’t think anyone will deny that. However, mistakes have been made in every major war that we’ve ever fought.
Roderick: But the difference between this war and other wars is that in other wars when said strategy didn’t work then another strategy was employed and that has not happened in this war. Unfortunately this war began as an ideological war and it continues to be one therefore sending in more troops in without a change in what they are going to do is meaningless.
Furthermore Bush is asking for $1 billion for a jobs program. So it takes Bush almost four years to realize that unemployed male Iraqis are prey for the insurgents?
Maybe if he had thought about that before the invasion then maybe things could be different right now.
NC Cop: I believe that we did the right thing in Iraq and are continuing to do so. I take every death of a U.S. soldier in Iraq very personally, as I’m sure everyone does. I think we can agree that nobody wants to see anymore U.S. casualties, but regimes like Iraq cannot be “contained” very effectively.
Roderick: What had we been doing with Saddam for twelve years since the Gulf War?
Saddam was a paper-tiger dictator who didn’t have an air force and not much of an army.
NC Cop: It’s an unfortuante thing but sometimes you just have to fight.
Roderick: That is all well and good but you guys seem to think that fighting is the only answer to every question.
Like Churchill said: “Never never never give up”
Like the old saying goes: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the sign of stupidity.
Why do we as America have such a problem with illegal immigrants that they are flocking across our borders for a better life and they count in the MILLIONS?
Why is it when I go downtown to the INS building their waiting rooms are packed to capacity with every nationality coming into the US?
|First answer we have millions of illegales coming from Mexico and Central America because they are impoverished countries who’s workers labor for pennies a day or why is the GM plant in Lansing gone, that is unless I am missing the hoards storming the border from Canada not.
Second answer in my neck of the woods the INS offices are filled with Hmong (see secret operartions in Laos), Somalia (Black down again), elSalvador(sp), and oh yes, Kurds our Muslim allies from Iraq.
I am more concerned about Pakistan which actually has nukes and a leader (dictator) who has a precarious grip on power. But my ultimate concern would be the ‘loose nukes’ from the old Soviet Union
Ok, then. What should we do about it? It seems, as usual, Bush haters have lots of complaints or “concerns” but no solutions.
Roderick: I am still not getting this about Saddam being the one and only source of terrorists obtaining a nuclear weapon.
I don’t recall anyone ever saying that Saddam was the one and only source of terrorists obtaining a nuclear weapon, perhaps you can find someone who did? Does that mean we shouldn’t deal with a single threat, because we can’t deal with all of them at the same time?
Furthermore Bush is asking for $1 billion for a jobs program. So it takes Bush almost four years to realize that unemployed male Iraqis are prey for the insurgents?
Not at all. But it’s difficult to boost an economy when people are blowing things up all over the country. It’s more important to try and get the insurgency under control then investing in businesses that may get blown up.
But the difference between this war and other wars is that in other wars when said strategy didn’t work then another strategy was employed and that has not happened in this war.
Interesting, you decry Bush for changing strategies and yet bash him for not changing strategies, all in the same post. Even for a Bush hater, that’s a new one.
What had we been doing with Saddam for twelve years since the Gulf War?
If you have read some of my previous posts you would have seen the link to the UNICEF report that twelve years of sanctions to “contain” Saddam had killed 500,000 children alone. Apparently an acceptable alternative to war for the democrats. Odd considering how “concerned” those same democrats seem to be for the Iraqi people.
Saddam was a paper-tiger dictator who didn’t have an air force and not much of an army.
Wow, still stuck in pre-9/11 thinking. They didn’t need any army or air force or nukes to kill 3,000 Americans on 9/11. Terrorists did that. Saddam had a training facility at Salman Pak which was destroyed by U.S. forces.
LINK
Notice the part about training in an airplane fuselage on how to hijack planes. Unless, of course, you believe them when Iraqi govt. officials claimed it was for “anti-” terrorism training.
That is all well and good but you guys seem to think that fighting is the only answer to every question.
And you guys seem to think that ignoring a problem and hoping it goes away should be central to foreign policy. How many times will it take before you realize that you can’t ignore threats? In WWII, isolationists decided what was going on in Europe wasn’t our conern, until we were bombed at Pearl Harbor. How might history have been different if the whole world, including the U.S., had stood against Nazi Germany when the invaded Poland in 1939? How many millions might have been saved?
In Korea, we decided it wasn’t worth the price to defeat N. Korea, just driving them out of S. Korea was enough. Now we have a communist, nuclear armed N. Korea with a very dangerous man in charge.
In Vietnam, we decided it was time to “cut our losses” and get out. How many millions were slaughtered by the communists after we left. I guess since they weren’t Americans, it didn’t really matter.
In the first Gulf War, we decided it wasn’t worth it to take Baghdad so we stopped short and went home. Sanctions have devestated the country and killed hundreds of thousands. How many might have been saved had we finished the job?
In Somalia, we turned tail and ran as soon as we took some casualties. Somalia turned into an Al Qaeda stroghold and our retreat has been used by Osama Bin Laden as propoganda on how to defeat the U.S.
So now, it’s time to cut and run from Iraq.
What was it you said about doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result…..oh yes, it’s the sign of stupidity.
- Remember Komrads…100 years of abject failure, and 100 million bodies proves nothing!
(Brought to you by Laika, the space doggie, beaming thruthiness to tin-hats since 1957)
- Bang