[Kevan]

Originally Posted by eaeolian

The Iraq war was, in hindsight, totally unjustified. There is *no* logical argument otherwise from a U.S. perspective. So it's pretty easy to be "against the war", since it shouldn't have happened in the first place, and it's execution seems to define the word "blunder".

Unjustified?
I guess if you don't count the sanctions and ultimatums set forth by the U.N. it would be unjustified.
(U.N. Resolution 1441)

"If you don't allow me access to ALL of your palace, we will write you a very nasty letter telling you how angry we are." - Hans Brix


(BTW- Is the U.N. even a legit body anymore? That building is more divided than a 5th grade math quiz.)

The Dems can rest assured that they will move into the White House next year.
The questions that their new boss better be prepared to answer (and I haven't heard boo from ANY candidate about ANY of this):

- You have an exit strategy for Iraq? Sweet! Let's hear it!
- You have a plan to combat and/or eradicate terrorism? Oh...this ought to be stellar. Spill it.
- You have ideas on how to repair relations with our friends in Europe? I don't think sending them copies of 'Beerfest' on DVD is gonna cut it. Think bigger. Maybe a statue.

Does anyone TRULY believe that ANY of the democratic (or GOP) candidates can repair the damage that has been done?
In 4 years?
In 8 years?
In 30 years?

If you want to run this country, you better be well-prepared and REALLY, REALLY, REALLY fuckin' good.
In guitar terms: You better be Shawn Lane, Chet Atkins, Steve Vai, and Kerry King all rolled into one non-asshole in a nice suit.

[Drew]

I've been waiting for Kevan to rear his head.

the Iraqi war? Well, he'd been violating UN regulations for decades and no one cared. The time to act was years ago, and either way you can't really make the argument that the US sought to uphold the sovergnty of the UN by, well, ignoring the UN. Meanwhile, it's since been demonstrated that Saddam was not pursuing a nuclear bomb, if he had biological weapons then he's about as good at hiding them as Bin Laden is hiding himself, that there were no connections to the 9/11 attackers and Saddamn, and any argument of "instilling democracy" and "liberating the Iraqi people" is pretty much a bust in that most of them say they were happier under Saddam and want us gone, and a good chunk of them are actively fighting us to ensure this happens.

The UN? Basically, you're right. The UN is only powerful when all of the G8 members are in agreement, and it's only militarily powerful with the American military. Turn most of them against the States, and they can't pass anything censuring us because we'll veto it, and they suddenly are a bit low on military power. Really, we need a series of changes to the UN Constitution, first and foremost I would propose would be that no resolutions can be passed over the veto of two (not one) Security Council members. Suddenly, compromise would have to occur and if it didn't, the "one nation playing hardball" would be powerless to stop it. The danger you get is that a nation might bail rather than give up it's veto power, and again how powerful is the UN without the US? however, two votes for a veto is still a workable enough compromise, I think, that the US government would be able to see the potential for gain (say, in passing binding resolutions against Iran over Russian opposition) as well as the potential for loss.

As for the problems facing the next president, again you're right. We're looking at several decades of work to even return the world to the conditions of September 10th, 2001. however, I think we can still call the next presidency a success if whoever the winner is both takes steps to work with Congress to improve the image of the United States abroad, and is willing to accept legislation limiting executive power so we never see the abuses of the Bush presidency again. As an aside, this is a big reason why I don't want to see Clinton win- I don't think she'll accept this, especially as she'd be the first woman president and want to show she's just as powerful as a man. Obama I have similar, abiet much smaller, reservations about for the same reasons.

Two out of three ain't bad, though, Kevan. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that the GOP is somehow showing themselves to have less conviction than they gave Kerry credit for.

[eaeolian]

Originally Posted by Kevan

Does anyone TRULY believe that ANY of the democratic (or GOP) candidates can repair the damage that has been done?
In 4 years?
In 8 years?
In 30 years?

No. Which is why this crap pisses me off so badly. I have children that will grow up dealing with the mess this idiot (that I made a direct point of voting against because I didn't think he'd be able to handle foreign policy - I think I'd have voted for Nixon before Bush) made because he had a permanent hard-on against Saddam.

As for the rest of your justification, yes, he violated sanctions. That was nothing new, and was NOT the dog and pony show that was sold to the US as to why we needed to invade Iraq.

Regardless, however, you're not addressing what I said.

In hindsight (the phrase you didn't parse), it was an unjustified invasion. It wasn't an illegal one - Bush had the authority - but the justification didn't hold up in reality. Give me *one* way in which the Iraq we found when we invaded was a threat to the national security interests of the United States of America that was SO dire that an immediate invasion was needed.

Got any? You're ahead of the Bush administration. Saddam was an evil, vicious SOB - but that was nothing new. He was NOT, in any demonstrable fashion, the level of threat he was presented as being.

I'd love to see the after-action report for this war if someone were to write it truthfully. Unfortunately, I'll be seeing the effects for the rest of my life.

[noodles]

[noodles]

Originally Posted by Kevan

Unjustified?
I guess if you don't count the sanctions and ultimatums set forth by the U.N. it would be unjustified.

Lets invade North Korea and China next. They're guilty of everything Hussein was guilty of, plus more.

[JBroll]

All of this makes sense if you drop the assumption that politicians are doing the right thing and operate under the observation that they're just used-car salesmen at heart. Handling 9/11 as our 'leaders' did - failing to address root causes or ensure safety, instead choosing to hide their mistakes behind that and playing people's emotional response like cards at a casino - wasn't a matter of 'doing the right thing', they just had to sell.

Many people made great names for themselves by turning something that should have all but destroyed the sense of complacency we've developed into something that turned us even more against each other over irrational nonsense. Are we safer? Hardly - don't see too many security analysts saying 'oh, we're much better off than before', instead of finding 'terrorists' we're inventing them as we go along to try and justify are policies. Are we addressing the things that caused attacks six years ago and before? If by 'addressing the things that caused attacks six years ago and before' you mean 'not worrying about the head honcho while taking questionable actions that only bring about more who want to act against us', then yes... otherwise, whoops. Have our mindsets and attitudes been permanently changed by people who use fear of pain and death to promote their own twisted ideologies? Erm... please tell me you're talking about the evil Islamofascist extremist terrorists, and not politicians who took advantage of their actions to promote themselves...

Somehow it seems that no matter who wins the elections, we lose...

Jeff

[Metal Ken]

Originally Posted by Kevan

- You have an exit strategy for Iraq? Sweet! Let's hear it!

Pulling everyone out seems to be the consensus.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by JBroll

All of this makes sense if you drop the assumption that politicians are doing the right thing and operate under the observation that they're just used-car salesmen at heart. Handling 9/11 as our 'leaders' did - failing to address root causes or ensure safety, instead choosing to hide their mistakes behind that and playing people's emotional response like cards at a casino - wasn't a matter of 'doing the right thing', they just had to sell.

Add into it that the Bush Family, the Cheney Family, and many of their friends are making a killing on war-related profits and the first disruption of and next control of the Iraqi oil supply, and I think we're onto something here. They're taking the actions they need to solidify power, and make a FUCK of a lot of money in the process.

I'll disagree with you in that I'd like to think that it DOES make a difference who we vote for, and some elected officials at least, it not try to do the right thing all the time, then at least not try to do the wrong thing for personal gain all the time while in office, but that could be optimism on my part. Either way, it's the democratic system we're stuck with, and if it's all I've got then I'll fight to make it work.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by Metal Ken

Pulling everyone out seems to be the consensus.

It's a tossup - if you do that, you have to accept a bloody and protracted civil war, and possible genocide on the part of the Sunni's, Shi'ites, and Kurds (calling them "the Iraqi people" is misleading at best in this context) and possible interferance on the part of Iraq's neighbors. this isn't exactly a rosy exit strategy, but you have to weigh it against Iraq with a US-imposed and US-controlled "democracy" puppet-state with a popular insurgency fighting the, well, effectively the US military, on several fronts for a time period with no foreseeable conclusion, all the while serving as a rallying point and a training ground for anti-American Islamist extremist militant groups that will be taking what they've learned in Iraq and applying it to fight the American army elsewhere in the world.

So, it's a no-win situaton. It's just a question of which outcome is worse, and frankly I wouldn't be so quick to discount the first as a viable "solution." Bush won't touch it with a ten foot pole though, partly because he's a moron and partly because he wants the blame to fall on someone else.

[ohio_eric]

Originally Posted by Kevan

- You have an exit strategy for Iraq? Sweet! Let's hear it!
- You have a plan to combat and/or eradicate terrorism? Oh...this ought to be stellar. Spill it.
- You have ideas on how to repair relations with our friends in Europe? I don't think sending them copies of 'Beerfest' on DVD is gonna cut it. Think bigger. Maybe a statue.

Why must I always have to educate Kevan?

Exit Strategy: We start pulling our troops out of combat and police roles and start getting the national guard troops back to the USA and reassigning the regular military. We leave enough troops behind to train an army and a police force and let the Iraqis figure what they want to do with them and where they want to assign them. A whole platoon walked out once because they were assigned to a part of Iraq they didn't want to go to. So we need to make sure they are an Iraqi force not a force propped up by the USA.

Ending Terrorism: I hate to play the cynic but terrorism is a tactic and we can't stop it totally. As long as there are people who feel oppressed and lack the military might of their oppressers there will always be terrorism. What we need to do is learn from the mistakes of 9/11 and fix them. We don't need a shitlaod of new beauracracy or more military power. We need better intelligence gathering that is efficient but still within the boundaries of our Constitution.

Repiaring relations with Europe: Pulling out of Iraq and not threatening to build missile shields in Europe and treating global warming like it's a serious threat would be a nice start.