WTF - Broad Optimism in Iraq....

[takeout]

Originally posted by Crescent Seven ...You keep asking questions and trying to debase our efforts, we'll do the hard work for you. C7

What's all this "we" stuff about, "Sarge"?

[takeout]

 

Originally posted by JeffBass They didn't botch anything and you should quit swallowing the crap that John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and the mainstream press is trying to shove down our throats.

Y'know, people keep saying {censored} like this... but I hear maybe a quote every couple of months or so from either of these guys on anything. Meanwhile, Bush is on every other day campaigning - on the "mainstream media". I suppose I should turn to blogs and the op-ed section of the WSJ for all my news.

 

If I bought a lemon from a used car dealer, and the salesman kept trying to convince me it was the deal of the century, I'd punch him in the dick.

[johnny6644]

The Republican playbook: Never admit mistakes, blame someone else, lie when necessary, impune the patriotism of anyone who disagrees.

A major mistake... disbanding the Iraqi army. Not enough troops... that allowed the country to dissolve into chaos.

Many people, of both parties, disagreed with the rush to war. To say that only the right offered constructive criticism is absurd. Any criticism offered by the left was dismissed out of hand, constructive or not.

They control the Senate, the House, the Oval Office and the Supreme Court. Every talk show on TV is conservative. It's time for them to quit painting themselves as victims here.

The question is: Are we better off than we were four years ago? Name one thing Bush has done for the average American.

[hawkhuff]

Originally posted by johnny6644 The Republican playbook: Never admit mistakes, blame someone else, lie when necessary, impune the patriotism of anyone who disagrees. A major mistake... disbanding the Iraqi army. Not enough troops... that allowed the country to dissolve into chaos. Many people, of both parties, disagreed with the rush to war. To say that only the right offered constructive criticism is absurd. Any criticism offered by the left was dismissed out of hand, constructive or not. They control the Senate, the House, the Oval Office and the Supreme Court. Every talk show on TV is conservative. It's time for them to quit painting themselves as victims here. The question is: Are we better off than we were four years ago? Name one thing Bush has done for the average American.

I have news for you; that is the playbook from EVERYONE in Washington.

 

Why does the question among libs always boil down to what are you going to give me? Me....me...me. Give me the cookies, I want the free this and free that. Well, guess what, it ain't free. Someone has to pay for it and it isn't the government

that's paying for the ride.

 

How about the creation of opportunities?

 

I don' know whether you have noticed or not but the dems have no plan, only gripes, complaints and obstruction. Oh yeah, and surrender.

 

Your argument is an old and tiring one. Try some different kool aid.

[cthulhu0]

Originally posted by JeffBass They didn't botch anything and you should quit swallowing the crap that John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and the mainstream press is trying to shove down our throats.

 

what didn;t we botch? mission accomplished in 2003? remember that? big banner on a battleship? end of major combat operations, welcome us with open arms, etc? NONE of that has happened.

 

we have almost killed as many americans as al quaida has at this point. ~3000 people died on 9/11. 2150 american soldiers have now died. the real tragedy? they died in vain as iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

 

because the "lib'rul media" will lie to you, but the president will not.

[lug]

Originally posted by cthulhu0 what didn;t we botch? mission accomplished in 2003? remember that? big banner on a battleship? end of major combat operations, welcome us with open arms, etc? NONE of that has happened. we have almost killed as many americans as al quaida has at this point. ~3000 people died on 9/11. 2150 american soldiers have now died. the real tragedy? they died in vain as iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. because the "lib'rul media" will lie to you, but the president will not.

 

 

Well to use your methodology:

and I shudder to think of the hundreds of thousands of americans that FDR killed by sending them to Europe when it had nothing to do with the Japaneze attack on Pearl Harbor! IT WAS IN VAIN! And the fact that Saddam was deposed, captured, Iraqi populus electing their own government, and the UN sanctions that were killing about 100,000 Iraqis a year stopped...MEANINGLESS! Did you know there were terrorists shooting at American soldiers for years after WWII? WE MUST HAVE LOST THAT WAR TOO! The difference IS the media portrayal, not the outcomes. Never in the history of warfare has so much been won with so little lost of troops with the possible exception of the first Gulf war.

[johnny6644]

"I have news for you; that is the playbook from EVERYONE in Washington.

Why does the question among libs always boil down to what are you going to give me? Me....me...me. Give me the cookies, I want the free this and free that. Well, guess what, it ain't free. Someone has to pay for it and it isn't the government
that's paying for the ride.

How about the creation of opportunities?

I don' know whether you have noticed or not but the dems have no plan, only gripes, complaints and obstruction. Oh yeah, and surrender.

Your argument is an old and tiring one. Try some different kool aid."

---------------------

Your kool aid has killed over 2,000 soldiers.

What opportunities are you talking about? The opportunity to watch the tax burden of this nation weigh more heavily upon the middle class? The opportunity of falling wages and record profits for corporations?

I'm tired of this cry of class warfare everytime some working guy wants a decent wage. That's class warfare and anytime somebody complains about the rich getting all the tax "relief" it's class warfare.

I'll tell you what I want. I want our soldiers home safe and sound. I want our country pulled out of debt.

But, you know what? I'm not gonna convince you and you're not gonna convince me.

Anyway, have a Happy Holidays.... and a Merry Christmas!

[hawkhuff]

Originally posted by johnny6644 Your kool aid has killed over 2,000 soldiers. What opportunities are you talking about? The opportunity to watch the tax burden of this nation weigh more heavily upon the middle class? The opportunity of falling wages and record profits for corporations? I'm tired of this cry of class warfare everytime some working guy wants a decent wage. That's class warfare and anytime somebody complains about the rich getting all the tax "relief" it's class warfare. I'll tell you what I want. I want our soldiers home safe and sound. I want our country pulled out of debt. But, you know what? I'm not gonna convince you and you're not gonna convince me. Anyway, have a Happy Holidays.... and a Merry Christmas!

It is disingenuous to blame reps for the death of 2,000 soldiers. Reps and Dems voted to go to war on the faulty intelligence.

Look at the business news - the economy is doing well. Unemployment is down and corporate profits are up.

Tax cuts help everyone.

Opportunities aboud in this country and if you don't see them then there is nothing I am going to do to convince you the glass is half full.

Listening to the current crop of panywaste politivcians and one learns that things are going badly, we are losing and we should pull out of the middleast right away.

People like that should not be voted out they should be physically dragged out and publically flogged. Both parties.

Oh, and Merry Christmas to you.

[cthulhu0]

Originally posted by lug Well to use your methodology: and I shudder to think of the hundreds of thousands of americans that FDR killed by sending them to Europe when it had nothing to do with the Japaneze attack on Pearl Harbor! IT WAS IN VAIN! And the fact that Saddam was deposed, captured, Iraqi populus electing their own government, and the UN sanctions that were killing about 100,000 Iraqis a year stopped...MEANINGLESS! Did you know there were terrorists shooting at American soldiers for years after WWII? WE MUST HAVE LOST THAT WAR TOO! The difference IS the media portrayal, not the outcomes. Never in the history of warfare has so much been won with so little lost of troops with the possible exception of the first Gulf war.

 

 

lug, who attacked pearl harbor? the japanese. who did we attack in retailation? the japanese. this is as if the japanese attacked us, and we then bombed brazil.

 

and we;ve personally killed some 27-30k iraqi civilians ourselves since this thing started.

 

as i have said before, war is sometimes necessary. but this time it wasn;t. and we will be paying this back for the rest of our lives.

[lug]

Originally posted by cthulhu0 lug, who attacked pearl harbor? the japanese. who did we attack in retailation? the japanese. this is as if the japanese attacked us, and we then bombed brazil. and we;ve personally killed some 27-30k iraqi civilians ourselves since this thing started. as i have said before, war is sometimes necessary. but this time it wasn;t. and we will be paying this back for the rest of our lives.

 

 

We attacked Germans first. 30,000 civilians wre killed in approximately 3 years due to the Iraqi war/police action. Saddam averaged more than twice that per year over his whole reign (civilian deaths only, not military). The UN sanctions everybody wanted to stay on killed an average 100,000 Iraqis a year for an estimated total of 1.3 MILLION dead. Even in the middle of our "evil" war, less people were dieing than with either Saddam or the UN sanctions and truth be told, in raw numbers, the sanctions were a much worse killer than Saddam ever was.

[beam]

Originally posted by lug We attacked Germans first. 30,000 civilians wre killed in approximately 3 years due to the Iraqi war/police action. Saddam averagesd more than twice that per year over his whole reign. The UN sanctions everybody wanted to stay on killed an average 100,000 Iraqis a year for an estimated total of 1.3 MILLION dead. Even in the middle of our "evil" war, less people were dieing than with either Saddam or the UN sanctions and truth be told, in raw the sanctions were a much worse killer than Saddam ever was.

 

 

 

If you want to use the argument that removing Saddam was a good thing and probably saved lives, I won't dispute that. But don't for one minute pretend that was the reason why we went there in the first place.

We went there on bad intel, and we now have to clean up the mess. In the end, it may turn out that we were indeed helpful, but removing him because he was a bad dictator to his people was not the stated reason why we went there.

 

Anyone who thinks that was the reason should ask the president why he isn't going to go do the same thing for the dozens of harsh dictatorships around the world that were like Saddam's.

[lug]

Originally posted by beam If you want to use the argument that removing Saddam was a good thing and probably saved lives, I won't dispute that. But don't for one minute pretend that was the reason why we went there in the first place. We went there on bad intel, and we now have to clean up the mess. In the end, it may turn out that we were indeed helpful, but removing him because he was a bad dictator to his people was not the stated reason why we went there. Anyone who thinks that was the reason should ask the president why he isn't going to go do the same thing for the dozens of harsh dictatorships around the world that were like Saddam's.

If there is a thief grabbing a girls purse whom you think is cute and may want to ask out(i.e. is sitting on vast oil suppies), by your logic, you should not help her because there is an ugly broad in Pokipsee (no oil or any other assests the country needs) who is also being robbed. We went in to protect longterm US interests and try to get democracy started in the region, plus we don't like Saddam, anyway. No country anywhere on earth has ever gone to war for any other reason, even if it's just for political stature. The fact that there is the excellent fringe benefit of saving about 90,000 lives a year is just icing on the cake. If we have to eliminate all the evil dictators at the same time, we might as well sit on our hands and bemoan the state of affairs and just do nothing but fund task forces that generate recommendations that are politically correct and get nothing improved for real people...Oh wait, we've BEEN doing that for decades.

[cthulhu0]

Originally posted by beam If you want to use the argument that removing Saddam was a good thing and probably saved lives, I won't dispute that. But don't for one minute pretend that was the reason why we went there in the first place. We went there on bad intel, and we now have to clean up the mess. In the end, it may turn out that we were indeed helpful, but removing him because he was a bad dictator to his people was not the stated reason why we went there. Anyone who thinks that was the reason should ask the president why he isn't going to go do the same thing for the dozens of harsh dictatorships around the world that were like Saddam's.

 

exactly my point. i am not arguing that saddam wasn;t a Bad Man. he was. but to say that we went in as a humanitarian mission is an outright lie. we went in becuase this war was sold to congress as "saddam has wmd and will attack us", which has, again turned out to be a lie.

[beam]

Originally posted by lug If there is a thief grabbing a girls purse whom you think is cute and may want to ask out(i.e. is sitting on vast oil suppies), by your logic, you should not help her because there is an ugly broad in Pokipsee (no oil or any other assests the country needs) who is also being robbed. We went in to protect longterm US interests and try to get democracy started in the region, plus we don't like Saddam, anyway. No country anywhere on earth has ever gone to war for any other reason, even if it's just for political stature. The fact that there is the excellent fringe benefit of saving about 90,000 lives a year is just icing on the cake. If we have to eliminate all the evil dictators at the same time, we might as well sit on our hands and bemoan the state of affairs and just do nothing but fund task forces that generate recommendations that are politically correct and get nothing improved for real people...Oh wait, we've BEEN doing that for decades.

Well, what it really boils down to is that we invaded and attacked a sovereign nation. We did it for inaccurate reasons, and then tried to make it seem like we did it for the Iraqi people. I really don't think the Administration had the Iraqi people in mind when we invaded, they were more of an afterthought as a bonus good thing. When it turned out we were there for a bogus reason, we really had no choice but to clean up the mess. We did not invade them so we could setup a Democracy, or if we did, that wasn't the original intention that was stated to the American people. We were told that Iraq posed an imminent threat to our security, and that we were pretty sure they had WMD that they were either developing to use on us, or our allies. It turned out that they were neither an imminent threat, nor that they were developing WMDs. We invaded for reasons that turned out to be wrong, and there really isn't any way around that.

We don't get to invade sovereign states just because we feel like it, or we feel that their current government is flawed. If we operated under that theory, we'd never have our military at home, and we'd always be on the offensive somewhere in the world. Do you think that's what we should be doing?

[cthulhu0]

Originally posted by lug If there is a thief grabbing a girls purse whom you think is cute and may want to ask out(i.e. is sitting on vast oil suppies), by your logic, you should not help her because there is an ugly broad in Pokipsee (no oil or any other assests the country needs) who is also being robbed. We went in to protect longterm US interests and try to get democracy started in the region, plus we don't like Saddam, anyway. No country anywhere on earth has ever gone to war for any other reason, even if it's just for political stature. The fact that there is the excellent fringe benefit of saving about 90,000 lives a year is just icing on the cake. If we have to eliminate all the evil dictators at the same time, we might as well sit on our hands and bemoan the state of affairs and just do nothing but fund task forces that generate recommendations that are politically correct and get nothing improved for real people...Oh wait, we've BEEN doing that for decades.

the logic is that you see 20 girls getting mugged, but you stop to help the pretty one, while ignoring the fact that your wife is being raped. and ignoring the fact that you know the other robbers personally, or that they are friends of your brothers, business partners etc.

if what you said is true, then we are no longer the good guys. we are no better that saddam was when he invaded kuwait.

[lug]

Originally posted by cthulhu0 exactly my point. i am not arguing that saddam wasn;t a Bad Man(tm). he was. but to say that we went in as a humanitarian mission is an outright lie. we went in becuase this war was sold to congress as "saddam has wmd and will attack us", which has, again turned out to be a lie.

 

 

You were arguing that Bush was "bad" for killing 30,000 Iraqi civilians over about 3 years when you stated "and we;ve personally killed some 27-30k iraqi civilians ourselves since this thing started." So I was pointing out that he is saving about 100,000 every year by ending the UN sanctions or saving about 25 to 35,000 if Saddam is ruling unchecked. That's a net gain of 90,000 lives. And if you think those sanctions were gonna work anytime soon, I got some land for sale just south of Galveston. If you think Taliban would have been ousted in the manner they were, I got land for sale just east of the florida penisula. It's easy for politicians to talk and take credit for events, it' hard for them to get anthing actually done.

[lug]

Originally posted by cthulhu0 the logic is that you see 20 girls getting mugged, but you stop to help the pretty one, while ignoring the fact that your wife is being raped. and ignoring the fact that you know the other robbers personally, or that they are friends of your brothers, business partners etc. if what you said is true, then we are no longer the good guys. we are no better that saddam was when he invaded kuwait.

 

 

We have a country as tied to us as a wife (say England) and we would do nothing to help? That's just rediculous. We will help whomever it is in our best interests to help first. No other country on earth would do any different so why do you have a different standard for us?

[takeout]

If we'd invested all the money spent in Iraq on alternative fuel research and fuel economy incentives, we'd still be acting in our own best interest AND be free® of Middle Eastern control on our energy policy. I could be driving a 70mpg car right now.

 

"Dont get involved in a land war in Asia". Have we learned nothing from The Princess Bride?

[lug]

Originally posted by takeout If we'd invested all the money spent in Iraq on alternative fuel research and fuel economy incentives, we'd still be acting in our own best interest AND be free(r) of Middle Eastern control on our energy policy. I could be driving a 70mpg car right now. "Dont get involved in a land war in Asia". Have we learned nothing from The Princess Bride ?

If you liberal fockers would just let me make Alaska into a giant pipe, invade and conquor Venezuela, and built a nuke plant in every town, we'd be free of all middle eastern influence!

[bbl]

Originally posted by cthulhu0 exactly my point. i am not arguing that saddam wasn;t a Bad Man(tm). he was. but to say that we went in as a humanitarian mission is an outright lie. we went in becuase this war was sold to congress as "saddam has wmd and will attack us", which has, again turned out to be a lie.

 

 

+1

 

And the whole "Congress had the SAME intelligence that the White House had" is complete BS.

[takeout]

Originally posted by lug If you liberal fockers would just let me make Alaska into a giant pipe...

1.5 years' worth of oil, by the White House's own estimate. If we put ourselves on a timetable, the terrrists win.

...invade and conquor Venezuela...

What do you think - three-day weekend for that one? Then we'll finally have enough banana peels for the DeLorean. Alternative fuels, indeed.

...and built a nuke plant in every town, we'd be free of all middle eastern influence!

One out of three ain't bad.

[bbl]

Originally posted by beam Well, what it really boils down to is that we invaded and attacked a sovereign nation. We did it for inaccurate reasons, and then tried to make it seem like we did it for the Iraqi people. I really don't think the Administration had the Iraqi people in mind when we invaded, they were more of an afterthought as a bonus good thing. When it turned out we were there for a bogus reason, we really had no choice but to clean up the mess. We did not invade them so we could setup a Democracy, or if we did, that wasn't the original intention that was stated to the American people. We were told that Iraq posed an imminent threat to our security, and that we were pretty sure they had WMD that they were either developing to use on us, or our allies. It turned out that they were neither an imminent threat, nor that they were developing WMDs. We invaded for reasons that turned out to be wrong, and there really isn't any way around that.

 

 

And now our Secretary of State is explaining to the world that the United States does not torture people.

[lug]

Originally posted by takeout 1.5 years' worth of oil, by the White House's own estimate. If we put ourselves on a timetable, the terrrists win. What do you think - three-day weekend for that one? Then we'll finally have enough banana peels for the DeLorean. Alternative fuels, indeed. One out of three ain't bad.

Now hold on, Venezuela is the 5th largest oil exporter in the world and is actively trying to pick a fight with the US. I would go after one of the top four but they are all too far away to run a pipeline to.

[lug]

Originally posted by bbl +1 And the whole "Congress had the SAME intelligence that the White House had" is complete BS.

 

 

Well we can drag out the Clinton era quotes and all the other same old proofs, sufice to say that every one in the world thought the same thing. Much of it due to Saddam's own actions with the inspectors that seem absolutely insane in 20/20 hindsight.

[takeout]

Originally posted by lug ...I would go after one of the top four but they are all too far away to run a pipeline to.

Now that's just a quitter's mentality.