iraq, just a Q

jeff f said:

i am not as pessimistic on the "system" as you and pad but i understand your pessimism completely.

i think if you watch what they do, instead of listening to what they say, its not that difficult to understand what their intentions are.

for instance, when the president of the united states starts bad mouthing business from all ends, pretty good chance he thinks he is smarter and knows better than them. that is a dangerous position especially when you havent an ounce of experience in the business world.

shouldnt the potus be happy that their are still businesses that are profitable?

you as a parent, do you want your kids to strive to be a ceo of a major company or a widget maker in a factory? most would say a ceo.

when people are encouraged to strive for the v ery best they can do, great things happen. when all you do is tell them how evil everybody making a profit is...well then you get complainers who are motivated very little and never reach their potential.

when you have bean counters in govt picking and choosing who is "worthy", giant red flags should start waving in your mind.

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doc111 said:

Don't get me wrong, I am 100% for capitalism, it's the govt. that is failing IMO. I think the situation is getting worse and worse with each president (the last few anyways). I am a patriot. I don't want to see the U.S. overthrown or anything like that. What I would like to see is less govt.........a lot less! Bad things typically start happening when govts get too big and I don't think we are an exception. I am optimistic that we can fix things though. It won't be easy. The powers that be are going to resist any attempt to make govt. smaller. Nobody wants to see their source of income (or power) taken away. And that is our biggest obstacle IMO.

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jeff f said:

unless things change drastically i dont think we will have any choice but to get smaller. everry level of govt is broke, right down to the townships. my state is seriously considering bankruptcy. they cant just keep printing money to fix it this time.

the world economy is teetering on the edge. the chinese now hold the cards as far as our dollar is concerned. they start throwing economic punches and the whole thing crashes...plenty of reason to be pessimistic.

in the words of the great racist, aldulterer and tax cheat jesse jackson. "keep hope alive".

or, dont drink and drive

or, up with hope down with dope.....i dont know, one of those apply.

in the words of towely, "wanna get high?"

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doc111 said:

Hell yeah!!! You don't even have to ask!


Let's get this thread back on track. I think the Iraq war was necessary for the stability of the region. Were the reasons for going a bit shady? I honestly have to say yes. Bush and co. should've done a better job selling it to the public and should've known that not finding WMD's would've spelled disaster politically (even though he was elected to a second term). We know for a fact that Iraq had them at some point but the opponents of the war conveniently seem to forget that. Or they say "Yeah they had 'em, we gave 'em to them!" We did give them plenty of notice that we were coming so they had plenty of opportunity to hide and or destroy them.

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jeff f said:

okay, now that i am high (good sativa hybrid, blue hammer by sannie and friends) i can concentrate a little better or not

and if you go back, every body in the world said they had them. to my knowlege no reputable intelligence agency said no they didnt have them. saddam said they had them and would use them.

that being said, we never found them and they didnt destroy them. hopefully they are buried and wont ever see the light of day.

i am rather amazed however at the speed in which bamster has done a 180 and is now claiming a "great success" of HIS administration.

do they think we actually have forgotten what they said? why would they now say this? something is fishy and a massive effort to rewrite the history of the whole debate seems a little premature.

can you imagine what will happen if they build this "success" in iraq thing up and then shit goes sour over their? that would be beautiful to see as a political junkie but not even the evilist of conservatives like dick cheney would relish in that.

those people have been through a lot and have earned the right to live without threat and with basic human dignities and freedoms. i wish them well, the iraqis that is.

obama, i hope this blows up in his lying face....bigtime.

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abe23 said:

First off, sorry to jeff and illegal if I got carried away with the insults in my last post. I was having a shitty day and I always get a little pissy when this subject comes up.

Yea, my friend knew exactly what he was getting into. He joined the marines after 9/11, ended up in the infantry and knew full well that he would most likely get deployed and face combat. Anyone who decides to join the armed forces knows the risks involved, but there is also an assumption that our political leadership will put them in harms way ONLY as a last resort and ONLY when America's direct security interests are at stake. Moreover, you assume that our leaders will have a parallel political strategy and a plan for how to deal with the aftermath of a conflict. None of this was done in the case of Iraq. The people in charge (yes....bush, cheney and rumsfeld for the most part) failed our troops when they sent them into a conflict without a plan for what to do once saddam was gone. You guys were all bitching about obama taking forever to announce his plan for afghanistan, but at least he seriously considered these things beforehand and didn't send our people into harms way lightheartedly.

And yes, our military did an outstanding job both during the invasion and the aftermath. Nobody doubts that we have the most impressive military force in the world and yes, we can knock out a conscript army with materiel that is older than most us within a matter of weeks. But if our political leaders are going to be a bunch of reckless ideologues who are willing to send our soldiers into harms way without considering the consequences, i would rather we had no military at all.

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abe23 said:

Wow, we actually sort of/kind of agreed on something there, jeff. I think that might be a first....

I don't just think we made some big mistakes during the invasion, I think we had no plan or strategy or even a vague idea of how we were going to deal with the aftermath of the war. It was only AFTER we had defeated saddam's vintage 80s army that we gave any thought to how to deal with security and basic government. That cost us support among iraqis and ultimately american lives. And I do blame bush, cheney and rumsfeld for all of that.

I doubt obama will be landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier with a 'mission accomplished' banner anytime soon. Do you have a quote of what you're referring to exactly?

I hate it when people play politics with national security issues any more than necessary, that includes dems and republicans.

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jeff f said:

here are a couple contradictions i found

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/08/23/politics/fromtheroad/entry4376910.shtml

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/02/vice-president-biden-iraq-could-be-one-of-the-great-achievements-of-this-administration.html

there are tons of them with obama too.

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abe23 said:

Ok, so this thread basically came into being because you don't actually make an effort listen to what people are saying? Biden's comment was that ending our military commitments over there would be an achievement. Not starting an unnecessary war.

Let's hope he's right....

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abe23 said:

Ok, so this thread basically came into being because you don't actually make an effort listen to what people are saying? Biden's comment was that ending our military commitments over there would be an achievement. Not starting an unnecessary war.

Let's hope he's right....

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CrackerJax said:

Saddam needed to be gone....end of story. A highly successful war too.

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