Democrats versus Republicans

[PBzeer]

sck5 - Bush Lied, no WMD's is in no way, shape or form, a rebuttal to my post. READ THE DAM* THING.

The question posed was, why should we be in Iraq. I specificly stated that my response had nothing to do with what ever reasons were given by Bush, or anyone else. It was my opinion on why we should be there.

Let me repeat. My post, as clearly stated at the beginning, had nothing to do with what got us there, only what I believed the strategic importance of being there was. As such, Bush Derangement Syndrome is not a rebuttal. It isn't even a rebuttal to the war itself. The only, the one and only thing, it rebuts, is Bush's stated purpose. A high school debate student understands that for pity's sake.

[Freesail99]

The attack on 9/11 came from Al Qaeda supporters thoughout the region, but launched from Afganistan with full knowledge and support of The Taliban in Afganistan, Saddam in Iraq, the meathead of Iran, and the moron in Libia

That statement is zero based in fact.

[PBzeer]

It's not a statement I made Free, nor one I believed. You asked me why we should be in Iraq and I gave my opinion. I've yet to read anything that disagrees with my opinions, other than comments that don't respond to them.

[Freesail99]

Originally Posted by PBzeer

It's not a statement I made Free, nor one I believed. You asked me why we should be in Iraq and I gave my opinion. I've yet to read anything that disagrees with my opinions, other than comments that don't respond to them.

True John, you didn't make that statement and I admire the fact that being that we sit somewhat on different sides of the fence on this one, we can remain civil.

[PBzeer]

It's easy, at least for me, to be civil, when the conversation stays on topic.That's why I stressed what I was responding to, before making my response.

Though I'm certainly not immune to an emotional response when sufficently provoked, intelligent conversation requires thought, not emotional reaction, I do try not to give in to it.

[wind_magic]

Originally Posted by sck5

Poopdeck and wind

Yes millions

Pictures of Anti

and more than 120 dems in congress.

senate vote and house vote tallies are here Iraq Resolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is entirely honest to say it, particularly when we have documentary evidence that foreign governments (in fact our closest allies) thought we were making up the evidence.

Downing Street memo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just because it has been repeated over and over and over that "everyone thought there were WMD's" doesnt make it true. In fact, why on earth do you think so many people were opposed to the Iraq war from the beginning? Do you really believe Dems dont want to defend the country from madmen with nukes?

Come now, we all ought to be able to respect each other more than THAT. I understand why you say what you do - The administration has repeated it many times and even I still dont like to think that our government is less than truthful. But the fact is that they blew it big time on this one, and many many people said so from the get go but were shouted down. The evidence is plain that many Dems didnt believe the administration - you can look up their speeches at the time if you doubt it but their votes show they put their money where their mouths were and were right to do it.

Sck5, I don't call you out on minor mistakes you write because you are basically the only representative of your party posting here, you usually write what you believe to be true, and there are plenty of conservative Republicans here doing battle with you and I figure you deserve the benefit of the doubt. But the above is incredibly dishonest. It's like you weren't even there when it happened. Yes, people marched against the war, but VERY FEW of those people believed there weren't WMD's in Iraq, they just didn't believe it was a good enough reason to go there because they were opposed to the war. Sure, there WERE isolated individuals and even small groups who did not believe that Saddam had WMD's, but you'd have to be CRAZY to say that most people didn't think so. Your own Democratic party thought so. YOU are the one trying to re-write history. But we were all there, we all remember the comments your party was making on television, and what they were saying were things like WMD's aren't a good enough reason to go to Iraq, but only a few individuals were saying that Iraq didn't have WMD's and most of those were part of the U.N. inspection teams. Most people in this country including your OWN PARTY believed they did. Your re-write of history might work on school aged kids who can't remember it happening, it has been years ago now, but it simply isn't going to work on the people posting here because we were there, we remember vividly how it went down. We remember MANY of your parties members being in support of the war, and nearly ALL believed Saddam had WMD's because the ones opposed to the war even used that as part of their justification for not going, because it was too dangerous to take American troops up against poison gas, etc. We remember WHY Hillary supported the war. We remember her being on television talking about the dangers of Iraq's WMD's and what Democrats were going to do about it.

[artbyjody]

It's a little late to re-hash how we got there. The real question is what will the new administration do to get our military presence out of there and it is complicated by a few factors:

1. Russia's re-surrgence as a cold war adversary. If we do leave who do you think will be the first to come into the country / region again. Won't be just Iran but Iran with their sidekicks from the Kremlin.

2. How do we re-coup the billions for the years of military presence and re-building. Seems to me the only ones making out on that deal are corporations with fat military contracts and the Iraqies..

3. How do we start pulling back in troops and getting them back on tours of duty that are less stressful on the families they have back at home.

4. Medical care for all those that have been injured etc...

It doesn't really matter in 2008 that there were no WMDs, that we were mislead as a nation by powers that be that had an agenda... what truly matters is that we the people re-elected Bush that stated we would be able to bring home the troops and instead we increased our efforts over there..

Those questions are what I want both of the candidates to answer...and we would be better suited at analyzing and discussing how it should be done ourselves instead of bickering over what spilt milk there already was and was long ago swept under the table as a means of allowing it to be part of the current American doctrine of life...

[wind_magic]

Sometimes when the bullxxxx gets too deep you just have to call it for what it is, even if it isn't productive. Sck5 is trying to change history by saying that there was a lot of opposition to the idea that Iraq had WMD's, when in fact most people including the majority of his own party believed Iraq had WMD's before we went into Iraq. Sure, it's really convenient to use against Republicans now, but don't try to tell us that your party was all over it, they weren't. That dog won't hunt.

I call it when Republicans are talking non-sense too, just like I have over the past few pages on health care. Republicans have a long way to go on health care, free market just doesn't cut it.

The post that made the most sense here on Iraq was Freesail's post wherein he talks about our real reasons for going to Iraq, which were strategy and long term. That is a common sense non-partisan simple explanation that is closer to the truth than you are going to get from either party.

[sailaway21]

Originally Posted by Freesail99

But the simple fact remains al-Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until we invaded it. Saddam in his own sick way policed his little piece of the world. As far as finding any Wmd, I seem to recall the news media and the administration jumping on anything that would justify us being there.

Sailaways 5 points are very good ones and is the main reason stupid people shouldn't be president. Or people with an agenda for that matter. It is just one more reason to think 3 times before you vote in November.

This entire war thing upsets me greatly, and I am really having chest pains typing answers. So I will beg out for awhile.

While acknowledging my points on our Iraq options Freesail does nothing in the way of acknowledging that it's a useless discussion suitable only for bringing out sailingdog's monthly anti-Bush response.

Keep focusing on events of five and six years ago Free and you'll miss the current events. At some point it will have to occur to you that you cannot change the past and dwelling exclusively on it, and GW Bush, will blind you to what decisions need to be made now in the world we live in today.

In the context of this thread, we all might consider how the war followed the McCain plan to success and while McCain has turned out to be correct in virtually every detail of the war, Obama has either not been present, voted against success, or has changed his position so many times as to be incomprehensible. You've now got a pretty good idea that McCain will do what he says he'll do while you've absolutely no idea what Obama will do. The regard to the latter, we are all sck5's, ie...confused. (g)

[SailorMitch]

Originally Posted by PBzeer

He fired his secretary of defense, put in a new commander, with a different strategy. That sounds like I was wrong to me. Whether he actually said the words, I don't know. It seems rather implicit in the action.

What those actions show me is a President blaming everyone below him For HIS failure in leadership for this "war." As an old Mafia saying goes, "A fish stinks from its head." Saying he is wrong is not in Bushie"s vocabulary. just like katrina, he assumed no responsibility for the pathetic response.