As I recall Sharbra and Shatilla, that was Lebanese Christians killing Palestinians while the Israelis looked the other way. The occupation you complain about was done under UN Auspices.
I knew Grenada vets. The Grenadans didn’t fight at all, it was the Fidel’s boys the 82nd had to deal with.
Iran-Contra- Seems to me we came out okay in that one. Saddam was checked, we got rid of Ortega (for a while). Wins all around. Our policy was to play Saddam and Iran off against each other, and frankly, it kind of worked out well.
Let’s examine how nuking Tehran would have worked out:
Downside:
Hostages dead
Price of oil skyrocketing during an already unstable period for oil prices
Making the rest of the Middle East REALLY angry at us, including our allies in the region
If you consider how much terrorist attention we got for our limited involvement in the region, multiply that by a few order of magnitude. Terrorism a-gogo, including probably a much higher probability of someone setting off a nuke in a US city.
Making the rest of the world pretty pissed off too
Massive economic impact as a result of the previous items
Various unpleasant environmental factors
Oh, and since Iran borders on the then-USSR, leapfrogging the nuclear clock several seconds towards midnight
Upside:
People like you getting to shout “USA! USA! USA!”
So…really a pretty balanced political and economic equation there, Mr Reality.
OK, now I know I don’t have to bother to even attempt to take Recovering Republican seriously. Life’s too short to bother trying to reason with folks who advocate mass murder.
They knew the job was dangerous when they took it. And I promise you, nobody else would have taken hostages again after that.
Actually, Iranian Oil was already largely off the world market at that point, and the damage had been done. The Gas lines were what helped do Mr. Carter in.
Actually, the rest of the Middle East would have been thrilled we got rid of the Iranian menace for them. Why do you think they all gave Saddam Money when Saddam invaded Iran? The Iranians scared the hell out of these dictators and kings.
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The main reason we have a terror problem in the Middle East is because we support Israel. Getting rid of a Shi’ite government that was hated by the vast majority of Sunnis in the region wouldn’t make that much of a difference.
Again, the rest of the world wouldn’t miss these maniacs.
Again, the massive economic damage was already done.
Are there a lot of snail darters and spotted owls in Iran?
Actually, the Soviets would have been as happy as we were. They had all those Muslim Republics in the region, and the last thing they wanted was those folks getting the Old Time Religion.
Given the fact that the Iranians are about this close to getting their own nuke, which will in turn make Saudi Arabia and Egypt want their own, think of all the trouble we could have saved.
That assumes Israel doesn’t do exactly what I suggested to prevent that from happening, which they probably will.
Of course, the simpler solution would have been sending a CIA hit team to kill Khomeini in Paris before he got to Iran, perhaps by sticking a pork chop in his mouth and putting him in bed with a dead hooker. But Jimmy didn’t do that kind of thing.
Right.. So during World War II, when we killed 4 million Germans and 3 million Japanese, was that mass murder?
Nope. It was WAR. and in WAR you kill the enemy.
Iran committed an act of war when they took our embassy. And Jimmy let them get away with it. They still burned him, though, waiting until after Reagan was sworn in to let them go.
Joke told in 1980. “What’s black and crisp and glows in the Dark. Iran when Reagan’s President.”
Hell,the problem now is that not only don’t we want to kill the enemy, we want to make extra sure we don’t hurt his feelings, either. What a joke.
Romney- A lot of money, lots of establishment support, but his main weakness is that he’s seen as someone who created the beta version of ObamaCare, he flip-flops on social issues on a whim (indicating no core values) and of course, he’s a Mormon. Upside. Seen as a strong business leader.
Bachmann- Only one who gets the bases blood rushing at this point. Charismatic, exciting in a bland field. She could take it, or she could flop.
Palin- Not running.
Perry- Could run away with it if he gets in. Has cred with the establishment, business, Tea Party and Social conservative wings. And he can contrast real economic success to Obama’s economic fail.
Gingrich- Can’t see him lasting much longer.
Cain- A novelty, but he might have legs because he can self-finance.
I wasn’t going to vote for Huntsman for the same reason I wasn’t going to vote for Romney (I really, really distrust Mormons.)
But the fact so many on the left are singing his praises is probably a good reason, too. I think Republicans have learned their lesson from that little bait and switch the left pulled with McCain. The left truly loved McCain, until he got the nomination, and then he became the anti-Christ. The GOP should no more let MSNBC pick their candidate than the Dems should let Fox do it.
I did mention Palin. I don’t think she’s running.
Pawlenty I’m not so sure about. I think on paper, he looks great. Successful two term governor (unlike Romney or Palin, who served one or less) Won re-election in one of the more liberal states during the awful year for Republicans of 2006.
Now, personally, I liked Pawlenty, but he’s done a couple things I don’t like. He’s pandering to the religious right, which always makes me nervous. I mean, seriously, re-instituting DADT? Seriously? What a honkin’ waste.
He stopped lasting several weeks ago. I don’t know what you have when most of your campaign staff resigns en masse, but whatever it is, it isn’t a campaign.
We were as puzzled about it as you are. He changed, drastically.
McCain in 2006 was a major supporter of immigration reform, campaign finance laws and voted against the Bush tax-cuts. Candidate McCain reversed all these positions (and would later renounce cap-and-trade when he ran in 2010). The left moved away from McCain when he moved away from positions the left supported, that’s not really a “bait-and-switch”, at least on the part of the left.
Watching McCain repudiate the last twenty years of his Congressional service for a chance to head an almost certainly doomed Presidential Ticket was one of the more depressing political acts since I started following politics.
Say what you will about Romney, I was glad to see him (more or less) stand up for his Massachucettes Health Plan. It is his major political accomplishment, and he should be proud of it.
No, he really didn’t. I think it’s just that as much as you all say you love Republican Moderates, you really don’t.
Same thing here in IL. People in the media here praised Mark Kirk for years for being the “sensible moderate” in the IL delegation compared to Pete Roskam and others. Until he ran for Senate, and even though Alexi GuywhosenameIcan’tspell was a crook and incompetant, the usual suspects lined up against him.
Because you are all for Moderates when they annoy conservatives… when they annoy liberals, not so much.
Which is really kind of a shame. Our very bad system already produces too little moderation.
I would say on all three of those issues, conditions on the ground changed. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a tiny mind.
Immigration reform might have been a perfectly good idea in 2006 when we were at 4.5% unemployment and clearly, no one wanted to do those jobs. In 2008, when it was up to 6.6% (which is really high, comparitively, the highest it had gotten since 1993) and no one was going to say, “Hey, let’s add 12 million more people to the legal job market.”
CFR, same deal. the courts struck down so much of McCain-Feingold that what was left was actually counter-productive. And then you got Citizen’s United, which has effectively put our politics up to the highest bidder. Somewhere Didius Julianius is having a good laugh.
Immigration reform was for people already working here, so I don’t see how they would be added to the job market. But in anycase, McCain’s stance didn’t change from waiting for lower unemployment, it changed to being against reform in general.
Citizen’s United was decided in 2010.
I would’ve said the same thing about McCain and the McCain-Feingold bill, but here we are.
Or he recognized that it was an unsellable position.
Come on, where’s the immigration reform Obama promised? That hasn’t happened either, even when he had control of both houses of Congress. The electorate would have went nuts.
He did try and reintroduce it in 2010 (and the smaller DREAM act was reintroduced), but it didn’t go anywhere since by that point they needed GOP votes in the Senate, and none were forthcoming.
But I’m not arguing that passing immigration reform was possible, your right the bad economy makes it more difficult. But thats a justification for waiting till the economy is in better shape, not abandoning support for it altogether. The same is true of the Bush tax cuts, extending them for a year or two until the economy gets better is a justifiable position given “changing events on the ground”, changing from opposing them to making them permanent isn’t (indeed the worsening deficit situation makes it less justifiable then it was in 2001).
Plus we’re kind of getting side-tracked, my original point was that liberals liked McCain when he supported several liberal positions, and turned against him when he abandoned those positions. There was no “bait-and-switch”. McCain’s reasons for changing his positions aren’t really relevant to that argument.
Can you say filibuster? The Repubs in the Senate made it necessary to have to override a filibuster for any legislation to get through.
You had to know that. So why do you keep saying when he had control of both houses. The Repubs blocked everything that they could not water down .
And even ignoring the filibuster, the Dems had a majority in the Senate for what, six months or so, between Franken finally getting seated and Ted Kennedy dying.