Political Crossfire Forums

[Commiebastage]

Basically, democrats have won on eventually getting the hell out of Iraq...unfortunately they set themselves up to lose because thats impossible and doing so would be worse than staying at this point. They also cannot claim that "only republicans" caused this mess because many of them ALSO voted to invade for immediate political reasons.

The way I see it, however, there is a potential way out for them, politically, and possibly a valuable lesson to put into our history books:

The democrats and independants in congress need to be united in a stance that invading Iraq was huge mistake that at this point cannot be reversed, and the lack of planning in doing so has caused Iraq to spiral downwards into a civil war. They need to sell the american people on the idea that its now up to the new congress to provide a different direction than "stay the course", which has only dug the hole deeper and deeper. They need to remind or convince people that they did not vote to engage in this type of commitment, but were stuck supporting it once the situation escalated, just as they are now.

This will immediately put the republicans and the president on the defense, and rhetoric about how great of an idea it was and how they've supported the president's solid plan the entire time will not fly, nor will they be able to deny their support on this misguided indever.

At the end of all this, it'll be said that we should never make such a hastey and aggressive decision again because it can end up costing everybody much more than its worth. Such was the case with Vietnam, and such is the case with Iraq.

(I in no way associate democrats with rational thought any more than republicans, but the full control of house, senate, and veto gave republicans all the space they needed to completely f**k the situation in their good name, and should be called on it)

[sLiPpY]

Exactly, what will be worse if the US decides to leave?

Why should anyone care?

[Commiebastage]

sLiPpY wrote: Exactly, what will be worse if the US decides to leave?

Why should anyone care?

Its worse by definition of the reasons we went in there: To save lives and to bring stability to the ME. The public over here still supports those causes, but its going from one emotional extreme of immediately destroying who we percieve as dangerous to being tired of the whole thing and telling them to live with the mess we made.

Jumping from one extreme to another only causes more problems, and on the moral side we have a responsibility to see this through.

I'm a huge dissenter for this war and in the past I've said we should just drop the whole thing while we're ahead, but the administration dug the hole deeper and deeper.

[sLiPpY]

Commiebastage wrote: sLiPpY wrote: Exactly, what will be worse if the US decides to leave?

Why should anyone care?

Its worse by definition of the reasons we went in there: To save lives and to bring stability to the ME. The public over here still supports those causes, but its going from one emotional extreme of immediately destroying who we percieve as dangerous to being tired of the whole thing and telling them to live with the mess we made.

Jumping from one extreme to another only causes more problems, and on the moral side we have a responsibility to see this through.

I'm a huge dissenter for this war and in the past I've said we should just drop the whole thing while we're ahead, but the administration dug the hole deeper and deeper.

If the objective was to bring stability to the middle east, and save lives.

It's a policy failure of monolithic proportions.

Hell, we've got Jordan talking about the Iraq Civil War spreading to three other nations.

20000 Dead Iraqi's this year
17000 Dead Iraqi's last year
14000 Dead Iraqi's the year before
and that's not even counting the invasion

We've got 21887 maimed US Soldiers limping around, over 2000 dead ones...

And you think the US should continue? The real economic cost to date is 4.8 Trillion Dollars. and you'd seriously advocate spending more "than meets the budget?"

Get out I say! Stop this nation building nonsense...

Richard Nixon was right! It's the Middle East and there's not a damn thing God himself can do about it!

Did you know that by now the USSR realized what a grave failure, and economic cost their excursion into Afganistan was. It's written all over memo's that were passed around the Kremlin. Thing is that they were too pious to admit that Super Power #2 couldn't do it.

Afganistan is what brought down the USSR economically, and end resulted in the spiraling metamorphasis that has their citizenry fleeing to the West and East as quickly as they can.

So we're now at the point of truth. Either we wise up, and say "f**k it" it's not my responsibility. Or we sit around for the next six years, trying to get that region back under some semblance of stability...only to have our currency go bust.

The United States simply can't afford it. Especially, when you consider that the real debt is actually $47 trillion dollars and climbing.

But then again, I do kind of like the idea of our country ending up on the Super Power dung heap.

[Deemoore]

I see it as a slam dunk.
The republicans made a mess and the democrats clean it up.

The next slam dunk
democrats raise taxes to try to restore confidence in the american dollar then republicans scream TAX and SPEND again.

It's like I have two parents.
One comes home,
tears up the house and starts fights with the neighbors.

The other comes home,
cleans up the mess and makes amends with the neighbors.

Until we get tired of our dysfunctional family,
Sit back and listen to the screaming and pray the people we owe money to don't take away the house.

[sLiPpY]

Deemoore wrote: I see it as a slam dunk.
The republicans made a mess and the democrats clean it up.

The next slam dunk
democrats raise taxes to try to restore confidence in the american dollar then republicans scream TAX and SPEND again.

It's like I have two parents.
One comes home,
tears up the house and starts fights with the neighbors.

The other comes home,
cleans up the mess and makes amends with the neighbors.

Until we get tired of our dysfunctional family,
Sit back and listen to the screaming and pray the people we owe money to don't take away the house.

The house is going to get repo'd. I saw an interesting assessment of the pending economic collapse, originally dated at 2028. I'd say that the GOP has accelerated the process considerably. Considering that date was originally calculated back in 1998.

[Rankor and Pissing]

sLiPpY wrote:

The house is going to get repo'd. I saw an interesting assessment of the pending economic collapse, originally dated at 2028. I'd say that the GOP has accelerated the process considerably. Considering that date was originally calculated back in 1998.

And I saw the Lochness monster and Bigfoot making out in a drive-in. The weather people can't even reliably predict rain and you're looking at a 30 year projection of economic collapse. I hope you didn't take it seriously.

[Commiebastage]

sLiPpY wrote: Commiebastage wrote: sLiPpY wrote: Exactly, what will be worse if the US decides to leave?

Why should anyone care?

Its worse by definition of the reasons we went in there: To save lives and to bring stability to the ME. The public over here still supports those causes, but its going from one emotional extreme of immediately destroying who we percieve as dangerous to being tired of the whole thing and telling them to live with the mess we made.

Jumping from one extreme to another only causes more problems, and on the moral side we have a responsibility to see this through.

I'm a huge dissenter for this war and in the past I've said we should just drop the whole thing while we're ahead, but the administration dug the hole deeper and deeper.

If the objective was to bring stability to the middle east, and save lives.

It's a policy failure of monolithic proportions.

Hell, we've got Jordan talking about the Iraq Civil War spreading to three other nations.

20000 Dead Iraqi's this year
17000 Dead Iraqi's last year
14000 Dead Iraqi's the year before
and that's not even counting the invasion

We've got 21887 maimed US Soldiers limping around, over 2000 dead ones...

And you think the US should continue? The real economic cost to date is 4.8 Trillion Dollars. and you'd seriously advocate spending more "than meets the budget?"

Get out I say! Stop this nation building nonsense...

Richard Nixon was right! It's the Middle East and there's not a damn thing God himself can do about it!

Did you know that by now the USSR realized what a grave failure, and economic cost their excursion into Afganistan was. It's written all over memo's that were passed around the Kremlin. Thing is that they were too pious to admit that Super Power #2 couldn't do it.

Afganistan is what brought down the USSR economically, and end resulted in the spiraling metamorphasis that has their citizenry fleeing to the West and East as quickly as they can.

So we're now at the point of truth. Either we wise up, and say "f**k it" it's not my responsibility. Or we sit around for the next six years, trying to get that region back under some semblance of stability...only to have our currency go bust.

The United States simply can't afford it. Especially, when you consider that the real debt is actually $47 trillion dollars and climbing.

But then again, I do kind of like the idea of our country ending up on the Super Power dung heap.

I think you're confusing my sentiment for "stay the course". I don't know the solution, but I think it'll involve staying there, but in a less significant force to let the people there stop fighting about us.

Personal I think we should let Saddam take his damn problem-child back :P He spanked his kids, but he kept them in check.

[sLiPpY]

Commiebastage wrote: sLiPpY wrote: Commiebastage wrote: sLiPpY wrote: Exactly, what will be worse if the US decides to leave?

Why should anyone care?

Its worse by definition of the reasons we went in there: To save lives and to bring stability to the ME. The public over here still supports those causes, but its going from one emotional extreme of immediately destroying who we percieve as dangerous to being tired of the whole thing and telling them to live with the mess we made.

Jumping from one extreme to another only causes more problems, and on the moral side we have a responsibility to see this through.

I'm a huge dissenter for this war and in the past I've said we should just drop the whole thing while we're ahead, but the administration dug the hole deeper and deeper.

If the objective was to bring stability to the middle east, and save lives.

It's a policy failure of monolithic proportions.

Hell, we've got Jordan talking about the Iraq Civil War spreading to three other nations.

20000 Dead Iraqi's this year
17000 Dead Iraqi's last year
14000 Dead Iraqi's the year before
and that's not even counting the invasion

We've got 21887 maimed US Soldiers limping around, over 2000 dead ones...

And you think the US should continue? The real economic cost to date is 4.8 Trillion Dollars. and you'd seriously advocate spending more "than meets the budget?"

Get out I say! Stop this nation building nonsense...

Richard Nixon was right! It's the Middle East and there's not a damn thing God himself can do about it!

Did you know that by now the USSR realized what a grave failure, and economic cost their excursion into Afganistan was. It's written all over memo's that were passed around the Kremlin. Thing is that they were too pious to admit that Super Power #2 couldn't do it.

Afganistan is what brought down the USSR economically, and end resulted in the spiraling metamorphasis that has their citizenry fleeing to the West and East as quickly as they can.

So we're now at the point of truth. Either we wise up, and say "f**k it" it's not my responsibility. Or we sit around for the next six years, trying to get that region back under some semblance of stability...only to have our currency go bust.

The United States simply can't afford it. Especially, when you consider that the real debt is actually $47 trillion dollars and climbing.

But then again, I do kind of like the idea of our country ending up on the Super Power dung heap.

I think you're confusing my sentiment for "stay the course". I don't know the solution, but I think it'll involve staying there, but in a less significant force to let the people there stop fighting about us.

Personal I think we should let Saddam take his damn problem-child back :P He spanked his kids, but he kept them in check.

I'm with you there. Let Saddam out of jail. Give the Baathist lots of weapons...and let them have at it. :lol:

[sLiPpY]

Rankor and Pissing wrote: sLiPpY wrote:

The house is going to get repo'd. I saw an interesting assessment of the pending economic collapse, originally dated at 2028. I'd say that the GOP has accelerated the process considerably. Considering that date was originally calculated back in 1998.

And I saw the Lochness monster and Bigfoot making out in a drive-in. The weather people can't even reliably predict rain and you're looking at a 30 year projection of economic collapse. I hope you didn't take it seriously.

We've been on an economic boom for quite some time. The only factors that have put a drag on that naturally good economy...are corruption and poor fiscal policy. That forecast predicted that there would be an economic down turn beginning in 2008. I think that'll be the first indicator as to whether the Economics professor's hypothesis holds true.

I think we all know that economics is very cyclical, you could put most corporations under the leadership of any given guy on a street corner and pay him five dollars per day. Depending upon the sector of the market the corporation is doing business in...I'd be willing to bet a mint that there'd be no disernable difference between the guy on the street corner running the show and the overpaid CEO.

I think the model and the reasoning behind the historical model...seemed pretty sound. Considering that I'll enter Fall of life at that juncture, it's not something that I'd want to live to see. But I'm damned well making sure that I'm financially prepared, which is a win-win anyway.

[Medius]

Commiebastage wrote: sLiPpY wrote: Exactly, what will be worse if the US decides to leave?

Why should anyone care?

Its worse by definition of the reasons we went in there: To save lives and to bring stability to the ME. The public over here still supports those causes, but its going from one emotional extreme of immediately destroying who we percieve as dangerous to being tired of the whole thing and telling them to live with the mess we made.

Jumping from one extreme to another only causes more problems, and on the moral side we have a responsibility to see this through.

I'm a huge dissenter for this war and in the past I've said we should just drop the whole thing while we're ahead, but the administration dug the hole deeper and deeper.

Hmm... Was I high? I seem to remember the reason being something about keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists...

Stability in Iraq cannot be achieved with US troops. Stability in Iraq will only come from the people of Iraq and only when they are ready to cooperate. At this point, all the US troops are doing is causing more instability.

No matter how hard we wish, it won't make "nation building" work.

[sublime]

sLiPpY wrote: Commiebastage wrote: sLiPpY wrote: Exactly, what will be worse if the US decides to leave?

Why should anyone care?

Its worse by definition of the reasons we went in there: To save lives and to bring stability to the ME. The public over here still supports those causes, but its going from one emotional extreme of immediately destroying who we percieve as dangerous to being tired of the whole thing and telling them to live with the mess we made.

Jumping from one extreme to another only causes more problems, and on the moral side we have a responsibility to see this through.

I'm a huge dissenter for this war and in the past I've said we should just drop the whole thing while we're ahead, but the administration dug the hole deeper and deeper.

If the objective was to bring stability to the middle east, and save lives.

It's a policy failure of monolithic proportions.

Hell, we've got Jordan talking about the Iraq Civil War spreading to three other nations.

20000 Dead Iraqi's this year
17000 Dead Iraqi's last year
14000 Dead Iraqi's the year before
and that's not even counting the invasion

We've got 21887 maimed US Soldiers limping around, over 2000 dead ones...

And you think the US should continue? The real economic cost to date is 4.8 Trillion Dollars. and you'd seriously advocate spending more "than meets the budget?"

Get out I say! Stop this nation building nonsense...

Richard Nixon was right! It's the Middle East and there's not a damn thing God himself can do about it!

Did you know that by now the USSR realized what a grave failure, and economic cost their excursion into Afganistan was. It's written all over memo's that were passed around the Kremlin. Thing is that they were too pious to admit that Super Power #2 couldn't do it.

Afganistan is what brought down the USSR economically, and end resulted in the spiraling metamorphasis that has their citizenry fleeing to the West and East as quickly as they can.

So we're now at the point of truth. Either we wise up, and say "f**k it" it's not my responsibility. Or we sit around for the next six years, trying to get that region back under some semblance of stability...only to have our currency go bust.

The United States simply can't afford it. Especially, when you consider that the real debt is actually $47 trillion dollars and climbing.

But then again, I do kind of like the idea of our country ending up on the Super Power dung heap.

To reform the Middle East was the goal; it's clear that we could never simply talk them into giving up oppression and issuing fatwahs around the globe or seeking weapons or planning 9/11-type attacks. Clinton tried the "showing them our wonderfull values" but still terrorists kept killing Americans all through the 1990s. Libya was seeking wmd. Saddam has sought and used them on his own people; and refused through 16 demands from the UN to prove that he had no weapons program.

Reforming the Middle East means bringing democracy into the region; bringing democracy into the region may demonstrate the difference between our lives and those living under despots like Saddam; it means signalling that the West won't tolerate their violence on our people in embassies or aboard ships like the USS Cole or on our soil. It means being tough enough to understand that it costs more to do less..............that some people have died and will continue to die until the Middle East reforms itself. If they won't, the West must do it.

This worked for the West against the Nazis; it worked for America against Japan.

Unfortunately we now have people whose vision is too small; who can't get past the deaths in Iraq now to see the future deaths that will come if nothing is done. It's the old narrowness of vision that sees trees but not the forest.

Talking to Syria and Iran, the latest suggestion from the American Left, is merely stupid. These people are not bound by Western values such as
"gentlemen's agreements." They will sign their name to any agreement and walk away from it and have it totally ignored. Palestine has done this repeatedly.

We cannot afford to be weak and ignorant of our enemy. A few Americans in a few states, based upon local issues, allowed some of our weakest to take over Congress once again.

We may all pay for that mistake.

[Mr. Sunshine]

BS. Our schedule to train Iraqis is right on time. 334,000 trained right now. The Democratic leaning Congress gets no credit for the hard work the soldiers have done to get the Iraqis trained. They have undermined the operation every step of the way, in general.

Any draw down of forces was preimminent of the training plan. Sectarian violence is not going to stop. The good news for Iraq is that U.S. forces will castrate the Mehdi Army before we draw down our combat elements. Once Mutada al-Sadr officially leaves the gov't and al-Maliki washes his hands of him the sides of the "civil war" will be drawn and we can kill 20,000 militia men with impunity. That will drastically re-balance the power struggle and give Sunni Iraqis a chance to draw down themselves. The Shura Council will continue to try and fan the flames of sectarian violence until Iran and Syria are confronted. The Democrats will not be able to claim victory no matter how they sell it. It will be used against them as their defeatist party line emanates today. Iraq is an irreparable quagmire, remember. :lol:

[perdidochas]

sLiPpY wrote:

Hell, we've got Jordan talking about the Iraq Civil War spreading to three other nations.


Well, according to the NPR story I heard, those 3 nations are Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. It would be foolish to blame problems in Palestine and Lebanon on Iraq.

[CursedLemon]

sublime wrote: To reform the Middle East was the goal; it's clear that we could never simply talk them into giving up oppression and issuing fatwahs around the globe or seeking weapons or planning 9/11-type attacks. Clinton tried the "showing them our wonderfull values" but still terrorists kept killing Americans all through the 1990s. Libya was seeking wmd. Saddam has sought and used them on his own people; and refused through 16 demands from the UN to prove that he had no weapons program.

Reforming the Middle East means bringing democracy into the region; bringing democracy into the region may demonstrate the difference between our lives and those living under despots like Saddam; it means signalling that the West won't tolerate their violence on our people in embassies or aboard ships like the USS Cole or on our soil. It means being tough enough to understand that it costs more to do less..............that some people have died and will continue to die until the Middle East reforms itself. If they won't, the West must do it.

This worked for the West against the Nazis; it worked for America against Japan.

Unfortunately we now have people whose vision is too small; who can't get past the deaths in Iraq now to see the future deaths that will come if nothing is done. It's the old narrowness of vision that sees trees but not the forest.

Talking to Syria and Iran, the latest suggestion from the American Left, is merely stupid. These people are not bound by Western values such as
"gentlemen's agreements." They will sign their name to any agreement and walk away from it and have it totally ignored. Palestine has done this repeatedly.

We cannot afford to be weak and ignorant of our enemy. A few Americans in a few states, based upon local issues, allowed some of our weakest to take over Congress once again.

We may all pay for that mistake.

Do you honestly believe that the people of the Middle East just kill for the mere sport of it?

No, they're aggressive (against the West) because they've been screwed with constantly ever since the oil drill was invented. Maybe they've learned to walk away from agreements with the West because the West couldn't care less about the Middle East, merely the black gold underneathe it.

Osama Bin Laden didn't command his followers to fly planes into our buildings because "we're a religious travesty", or some crap like that. Terrorists come after us because we won't keep our noses to ourselves. And this doesn't just go for the Bush administration, but all through the Reagen years up to date.

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but ME mentality is still in the Dark Ages as far as culture. They're absolutely not ready to convert to a democratic, non-theocratic form of rule, much less have it FORCED upon them by an invading body who they've been indoctrinated to hate regardless.

If our mission was to "reform the ME", then that's one more lie we can chalk up on the Bush admin's record. But forcing democracy on them is not going to suddenly stop the killing. The ME has to come to its senses on its own; telling them what to do will only increase the violence. Which is MORE than being demonstrated, I would happen to think.

[Mr. Sunshine]

perdidochas wrote: sLiPpY wrote:

Hell, we've got Jordan talking about the Iraq Civil War spreading to three other nations.


Well, according to the NPR story I heard, those 3 nations are Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. It would be foolish to blame problems in Palestine and Lebanon on Iraq.

Yes the King of Jordan calls the three occurring civil wars a problem. Internally, Hamas vs. Fatah in Palestine would be an accurate use of the term. In Lebanon, we have Hezbollah trying to take over the political process against the freely elected cabinet there and they are using assassinations to do this with the U.N. watching. Thirdly, Iraq will officially be in a civil war when/if Muqtada al-Sadr keeps his promise and leaves al-Maliki's gov't when he meets with Bush next week. They are from the same political party. Muqtada runs the militant wing of al-Maliki's party. Once that occurs, we will officially have civil war in Iraq also. For six months, coalition forces have been operating under rules of engagement that forbid military contact with the Mehdi Army because of al-Maliki. With the official split from gov't, Coalition forces get the green light to stomp 20,000 militia men to "protect" the elected gov't. Even as a confirmed agnostic, I for one am praying for Al-Sadr to keep his word and officially ignite "the civil war in Iraq", locked and loaded. +p

[ZeroCow]

Mr. Sunshine wrote: BS. Our schedule to train Iraqis is right on time. 334,000 trained right now.

Does that figure count the amount that received our training but are still working for al'qaeda cells and will be taking hostages while posing as Iraqi security and army personnel?