I don't believe it

[Shelby07]

Do I think alternative plans should not be discussed? Of course not. That’s an insulting question designed to belittle me and make me look like an inflexible fool, and it does not lend itself to promoting intelligent discussion. And, in fact, it is a great lead in to what I am about to say. The “plans” that have been presented have been done in the context of a 20 minute diatribe of telling the “President” (i.e., listen to us, citizens of the US) that he is a liar, a criminal and a buffoon, and ending with “we have a better plan. Why aren’t you smart enough to listen to us?” Is this the way any sane person would start a negotiation? Remember your definition of insanity. You know, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? They aren’t saying a damn thing about a plan, nor are they trying to talk about alternatives. If they were so damn worried about discussion and negotiation of their plan, they would change their approach. Their agenda is only to paint the current administration in a bad light, and they have no interest in presenting a “better plan.” They have to have something, so they keep getting together and coming up with inane statements on pieces of paper that, by their own admission, aren’t fully thought out yet. “But it’s gotta be better than Bush’s plan.” As I said, it is a necessary piece in a game of chess, nothing more. And the public keeps buying it.

Am I looking for warm fuzzies? No. There are no warm fuzzies available in a war. It was a figure of speech. No one wants war but when the other fellow hits you, you can either hit back, or stand there telling him that wasn’t nice while he proceeds to kill you.

Bush didn’t refuse to believe experts. You have decided he didn’t listen to “your” experts after the fact, but as I stated in a previous post, he had full support of the democrats and the rest of the world going in as evidenced by congressional votes and UN resolutions. To say now that he made the decision to go into Iraq all by himself is nothing more than revisionist history.

So what is the purpose of the democratic resistance to what is going on? In my estimation it is political posturing and spin for no other reason than to gain power. There are 2 ways to improve a position. One is to make yourself better; the other is to try to make your opponent worse. The democrats aren’t making themselves better. They don’t have unity, nor do they have any viable or well thought out ideas, so they have to try to win by belittling republicans. And, I’ll have to give it to them, they’re good at it.

As for republican and democratic “talking points”… You seem to imply that democratic talking points are valid and republican talking points are invalid. You accuse me of referencing republican talking points, and seem to expect that would make them automatically invalid. You have referenced many ideas that I consider to be democratic talking points, but I have never assumed that you were echoing them. Sometimes talking points actually make sense and sometimes they don’t. That goes equally for democrats or republicans.

These are my views. They are thought out, not echoed. I am still interested in discussion, but let’s try to keep it on a logical, thinking level.

Anybody else interested in joining in?

[SmokinDVM]

You say that my flawed premise is that we are not fighting terrorists in Iraq. You say that 99% of the population wants us out. 99%? Why not just round it to 100%? I understand that you exaggerated the number for effect., which is just what the opponents of Bush are doing. I don’t know what the real number is, but, thinking it through, I believe if it were very high, the “insurgents” would be attacking and killing more of us instead of their own people. They keep killing themselves, yet the democrats and news pendants want us to believe that they are fighting in a concertred and united effort to get us out. How does what we are seeing and what they are saying make any sense?

Yes, you’re probably right, it’s probably closer to 100%. I was using the same premise as “4 out of 5 Dentists say brushing helps prevent cavities”. There’s always someone that just has to be contrary.
Who said it was a concerted and united effort? It’s a loosely, if even that much, connected group of people who are fighting an urban guerilla type of war. Just because they don’t have the firepower to engage us in direct combat doesn’t mean they don’t want us out. I believe the count of dead U.S. Soldiers in Iraq, in the first 13 days of Aug. 2006, is at 23, with more than 110 wounded. I’d have to say they’re still trying to kill our boys.

So, let’s reason something else out for a minute. On one hand democratic spin tells us that there are no terrorist strongholds in Iraq, only insurgents fighting a civil war, and on the other they tell us that American presence in Iraq is only making things worse by increasing the number of terrorists operating out of Iraq due to Bush’s failed policies. Which is it? The fact is that we continue to root out terrorist leaders in Iraq, not the least being Al Zarquai himself. Opinions continue to dribble in that terrorists are flocking to Iraq to fight the Americans and that the Bush policy is making things worse, but that seems to be losing its punch. So now we are being told that they are fighting a civil war and that the vast majority of Iraqi’s don’t want us there. Well, my conclusion is that as long as we continue to find, capture and kill the high level members of terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda in Iraq, then they must still be there.

We’re not talking about terrorists operating out of Iraq, we’re talking about the terrorists being created/recruited in the entire Middle East. Al Zarqawi wasn’t even considered a part of Al Qaeda until the war in Iraq started. Al Qaeda considered him a threat to Bin Laden and other leaders of their group. It’s even been considered by the Intelligence Agencies of some Countries, not the US of course, that Al Zarqawi was given up by Al Qaeda. So the huge number of terrorist leaders we’ve killed or captured in Iraq equals exactly ½.
The real terrorists aren’t “flocking” into Iraq to fight the US, they’re plotting attacks on London and Madrid.

Do I believe that “stay the course” is working? Think it out. Evidence so far says that it is. The presence in Iraq is only one part of it, and as stated above, I believe we still need to be there in force. We haven't been successfully attacked since 9/11 despite attempts by our enemies, and there have been several cells rounded up in this and other countries due to intelligence from the CIA, FBI and Homeland Security. Are they talking to each other? Yes. Is it working? It sure seems to be. I don’t know, and I don't know if anybody knows, how many attacks were thwarted in this country because these cells were broken up, but common sense and logic dictates that it must have been a few.

If there were ANY REAL terrorist cells or plots broken up in the U.S. the neocons would be crowing about them endlessly. There isn’t any evidence that anything the neocons have done is working. Could you please provide evidence of these attempted attacks? I’ve only seen a couple reports that were quickly shown to be nothing more than continued neocon bullshit.
Common sense and logic dictate no such thing. I think it much more likely that we haven’t had a major attack in the U.S. because no ones made a serious attempt.

I do not confuse the “war” in Iraq with the war on terrorism. Iraq has a fledgling government elected by the majority of the people of Iraq through legal elections which we helped along after Saddam’s downfall. We most certainly have an interest in having that new government succeed. We are not at war with Iraq. We are defending their government until they get to the point where they can defend themselves. Concurrently, we are rooting out the terrorist strongholds that still exist in Iraq intent on defeating the newly elected government for the purpose of keeping democracy out of the Middle East. I keep hearing that there is a “civil war” going on in Iraq, but I don’t see it. I don’t see factions breaking off and seceding from the government, nor do I see separate governments or borders forming. I see terrorists (or insurgents if you prefer) trying to overturn the will and the resolve of the people of Iraq with suicide bombings, car bombs, kidnappings and brutal murders. And as I said before, until their government is strong enough to continue weeding out terrorists (insurgents) we need to keep our presence there or risk the newly elected (by the Iraqi people, not the Bush administration) government being defeated by our enemies. How long can we maintain our presence? Given that the government would more than likely crumble if we left too soon, I would say as long as we have to.

They’ve had 3 years to develop a security force to protect themselves. How many units of Iraqi’s are ready to assume control of security in any section of Iraq? Exactly NONE. Why is it that it takes 13 weeks to prepare a U.S. Army trainee for combat, but we can’t train a single unit of Iraqi’s for such in 3 years?
I do see a civil war breaking out in Iraq, maybe not along strictly political lines, but definitely along religious ones. Sunni-Shiite violence is a common and ever increasing occurrence in Iraq.
We’re not “weeding” out anybody by being in Iraq. Our continued presence only serves to fuel the violence.
The U.S. Government doesn’t give 2 shits about democracy in the Middle East. If they did care, they wouldn’t have sat on their hands concerning Lebanon. They were a functioning, however young, Democracy, even without our presence there.

Do I think we are winning friends in Iraq and around the world because of our presence in Iraq? Well, it seems to me that no matter what we do, there will be those in the world who are going to hate us anyway. It’s kind of like hating the rich because they are rich. The WTC was attacked long before we went into Iraq, and not by those who loved us. And frankly, I really don’t give a shit about the French. They are still pissed off over the fact that their special contracts with Iraq to obtain cheap oil has been destroyed. We are at war. I won’t minimize the fact that there are those who have attacked and killed us in the past and will persist in their efforts far into the future just so we can be popular in a world that depends on US soldiers and US lives for their protection.

It’s called DIPLOMACY. Most Countries practice it, as we did prior to our present chickenhawk administration, and it really works. And don’t start about stupid contracts with Iraq for oil. Darth Cheney himself had been dealing illegally with Iraq through French based holdings of the Carlyl Group, and Haliburton.
What you’re doing is minimizing the value of U.S. Soldiers lives, by linking terrorist activities with military action in a country that was NEVER a threat to the U.S. in any way. When you repeat stupid neocon drivel, like linking Iraq with the WTC attack, you’re insulting my intelligence, and insulting every single person who has lost their life in both the WTC, and the conflict in Iraq.
One last time, I hope. Our presence in Iraq does NOTHING to deter terrorist activity anywhere else in the World.

Am I willing to “sacrifice” the next generation? That’s one of those very difficult questions asked on polls and in political speeches that turn you into a heartless ogre if you don’t answer it in a particular way. So let me rephrase it. Are you willing to sit back and let our country be attacked so that our military remains safe and sound? The military fight wars, and people die in wars. That's what war is about. Past generations have paid the ultimate sacrifice to preserve and protect our freedoms and way of life. As long as our country needs to be protected, our soldiers will risk paying the ultimate sacrifice. Is there another way? If so, enlighten me.

Those two questions have nothing in common. Terrorist attacks on the U.S. have nothing to do with our Military. If a Country attacks us, our Military should be involved. Terrorists are not Countries, they are criminals, and should be treated as such. Our Intelligence Services and Law Enforcement, should be used to hunt and eliminate these criminals, not the Military.
Are you trying to compare what’s going on in Iraq with WWII or similar? Iraq has nothing to do with protecting our freedoms or our way of life. If you were really concerned with our freedoms and way of life, you might actual realize that this admins response to 9/11 has allowed the terrorists to win already. Our way of life is changing. Our freedoms are being rolled back. Our rights are being trampled on. The terrorists have accomplished at least part of their mission, and are laughing at us now.

[SmokinDVM]

Will the draft be reimplemented? It may be, I don't know, but there are no indications coming from anywhere that will happen. Charlie Rangel and Ernest Hollings tried to use that scare tactic in 2004, remember? Bills to implement the draft were introduced and overwhelmingly defeated.

Not my point at all. What I was discussing was, as the Military continues to fall drastically short of recruiting goals, and as that trend continues to worsen, will the draft be implemented to make up for the troop deficits, will we pull the troops out when it becomes obvious (more than it is already) that the objective (whatever the hell that is) can’t be accomplished with the present troop numbers, or will we leave them in until the last man is dead? If we continue to leave troops in Iraq for 3 and 4 tours, we’ll soon run into one of the above scenarios.

Would resources be better utilized for intelligence operations? You Betcha! And they are. But the democrats want to tie the hands of the current administration by limiting surveillance abilities and demanding public details of methodology being used by the intelligence communities. That is something that just doesn’t make sense to me, and every fiber of me says that it is a democratic effort to make the current administration look like the secret police. Do you think the Brits would have been able to uncover the plot to blow up 10 aircraft had they had their hands tied by the ACLU, or had the NY Times reporting their methodology? Even worse, had the terrorists succeeded in downing the planes, any evidence of how they accomplished it would be lost at the bottom of the ocean. Without surveillance ability, who knows if the Brits would have uncovered the plot and whether it would have been used again due to lack of sufficient clues to determine how it was accomplished in the first place.

Limiting surveillance abilities = preventing the neocons from spying on U.S. Citizens illegally. And, they’re demanding OVERSIGHT of activities within the United States, not an unreasonable request IME. The NY Times? The ACLU? Whether you want to admit it or not, you’re pulling that shit straight off of fox, and they’re pulling it straight out of their ass. Dumbya had publicly discussed tracking bank records long before the Times reported such. Interesting how no one had a shit-fit about that. And the ACLU, although they do get carried away sometimes, does a very necessary service for the citizens of this country.
BTW, the British were tipped off by a Pakistani who had noticed some suspicious activity from some of the accused terrorists. The British then used conventional, and what would be perfectly legal means, even in the U.S., to track the activities of the terrorists. Without that tip, the planes may have went down. And to top it all off, dumbya comes out with the term Islamo-fascist, just to piss off all of the Muslims he possibly can, just to see if he can keep them from helping the next time.
So let’s stop pretending that there was some “special surveillance technique” that the British were able to use, and we wouldn’t because of that damned Bill of Rights section of the U.S. Constitution.

Why did I think you felt we could negotiate with terrorists? It was an assumption I made since you were citing Paul Pillar in a previous post who is well known for his feelings on the subject. I assumed that since you used his opinion as supporting documentation, you probably agreed with the ideas that influenced his opinions. I am glad I was wrong on that one.

I have no love for terrorists, and am not of the belief that they can be negotiated with in any meaningful way, any more than any other criminal. I don’t, however, think that any of the recent hostilities in the Middle East, involve negotiating with terrorists to help garner some peaceful resolution of at least the current actions.

[SmokinDVM]

Do I think alternative plans should not be discussed? Of course not. That’s an insulting question designed to belittle me and make me look like an inflexible fool, and it does not lend itself to promoting intelligent discussion. And, in fact, it is a great lead in to what I am about to say. The “plans” that have been presented have been done in the context of a 20 minute diatribe of telling the “President” (i.e., listen to us, citizens of the US) that he is a liar, a criminal and a buffoon, and ending with “we have a better plan. Why aren’t you smart enough to listen to us?” Is this the way any sane person would start a negotiation? Remember your definition of insanity. You know, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? They aren’t saying a damn thing about a plan, nor are they trying to talk about alternatives. If they were so damn worried about discussion and negotiation of their plan, they would change their approach. Their agenda is only to paint the current administration in a bad light, and they have no interest in presenting a “better plan.” They have to have something, so they keep getting together and coming up with inane statements on pieces of paper that, by their own admission, aren’t fully thought out yet. “But it’s gotta be better than Bush’s plan.” As I said, it is a necessary piece in a game of chess, nothing more. And the public keeps buying it.

You do realize that NOTHING gets brought up for discussion, no less a vote, without the neocons approval? The Democrats, at present, have absolutely zero ability to force a vote on anything. So, whose agenda is being served by bypassing discussion, and forcing a vote, on any bill? Hmmm, let me see, maybe the NEOCONS.
Feigning injury doesn’t promote intelligent discussion either. I was making a point that the neocons, and you per this entire discussion, aren’t offering up any alternate plans, or any plans at all. Do all of you think that everything is running along just peachy, like the asshole-in-chief does? Stay the course, is all that’s heard from all the neocons. Do they really think it’s the best course possible, or do they just like the catchy three word phrases, and are afraid to depart from them and actually think?

Am I looking for warm fuzzies? No. There are no warm fuzzies available in a war. It was a figure of speech. No one wants war but when the other fellow hits you, you can either hit back, or stand there telling him that wasn’t nice while he proceeds to kill you.

Sure, but if the guy sitting to your left at the bar, pushes you on purpose and makes you spill your beer, do you punch the guy sitting six stools to your right, who was just sitting there drinking and not really bothering anyone?

Bush didn’t refuse to believe experts. You have decided he didn’t listen to “your” experts after the fact, but as I stated in a previous post, he had full support of the democrats and the rest of the world going in as evidenced by congressional votes and UN resolutions. To say now that he made the decision to go into Iraq all by himself is nothing more than revisionist history.

No, it isn’t revisionist history. Dumbya and his cronies knowingly promoted specious evidence as to Iraqs military capability, possession of WMD’s, and involvement in any terrorist activities. And, the continued coverup, and stonewalling of investigations into the pre-war intelligence and dumbya’s handling of it, should completely outrage everyone in this Country.
BTW, the facts were purposefully ignored BEFORE the war. Did you know that immediately post 9/11 dumbya ordered that ALL intelligence gathered by the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, and his cabinet members was restricted to viewing by only 8 members of Congress? All of that information is still being protected by the neocons. What is dumbya afraid of? I have to assume he’s afraid of getting caught lying, and will do whatever is necessary to delay that discovery until after the 2006 elections, and longer if possible.

So what is the purpose of the democratic resistance to what is going on? In my estimation it is political posturing and spin for no other reason than to gain power. There are 2 ways to improve a position. One is to make yourself better; the other is to try to make your opponent worse. The democrats aren’t making themselves better. They don’t have unity, nor do they have any viable or well thought out ideas, so they have to try to win by belittling republicans. And, I’ll have to give it to them, they’re good at it.

How about we apply a little neocon, and others, “logic” to this situation? Well, the neocons continuously say that all of the rights the “patriot” act has taken away, the illegal phone taps, collection of bank records, and searches without a warrant, shouldn’t bother anyone if they don’t have anything to hide. So, why do the neocons continue to block access to pre-war intelligence, oversight of the phone tapping, and energy policy meeting participants etc., etc.? If they aren’t guilty of any wrongdoing, then they shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

As for republican and democratic “talking points”… You seem to imply that democratic talking points are valid and republican talking points are invalid. You accuse me of referencing republican talking points, and seem to expect that would make them automatically invalid. You have referenced many ideas that I consider to be democratic talking points, but I have never assumed that you were echoing them. Sometimes talking points actually make sense and sometimes they don’t. That goes equally for democrats or republicans.

I would have to agree, that as a general rule, neocon talking points ARE invalid, and Democratic talking points are valid. As we all should know, rules always have their exceptions. I just haven't seen too many lately.

These are my views. They are thought out, not echoed. I am still interested in discussion, but let’s try to keep it on a logical, thinking level.

I have presented all of my views in as simple and logical a format as possible. You can lead a horse to water…