Even if you don’t like all of Kerry’s policies, at least he’s a guy that cares about policy and making sure they are good and workable. There’s something to be said for that: a LOT to be said for that, and to respect in that, over Bush’s team, which is so political and disdainful of planning and policy analysis.
Thomas Oliphant has a pretty good article on Kerry.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8118
Am I being whooshed?
You do realize that we increased the worldwide availability of whatever “WMD components” that Hussein had, don’t you? And that some of the sites where these things were kept were literally looted down to their foundations after the US took over in Iraq?
One of the central goals of the invasion was to eliminate or at least decrease the threat posed by the possibility of terrorists getting their hands on whatever WMD related thingies Hussein had.
Since this threat has instead increased, we have failed in a critical mission.
Failure of a critical mission makes the description ‘resoundingly successful’ inappropriate (unless one uses some of the more rare and unexpected definitions of the words ‘resoundingly’ and ‘successful’).
A venture that features a failure of a critical mission would be more accurately described by the phrase ‘qualified success.’
‘Totally sound’ would have to have a definition provided before I could comment further. From the context it’s obvious that the phrase is being used in a way that’s archaic, slang or otherwise unusual- one that I’m unfamiliar with. After there’s a more explicit explanation of what is meant by this phrase, I can make up my mind as to whether or not I agree with it, or want to challenge it.
It’s not just in Iraq that Bush’s policies have promoted the proliferation of WMD’s:
Bush Stresses Importance of Nunn-Lugar Programs but Cuts Funds in 2005 Budget Request
U.S. Lags in Recovering Fuel Suitable for Nuclear Arms
I’d like to hear the administration explain how letting enriched Russian uranium sit around in poorly secured facilities enhances our national security.
All evil men in positions of power felt like they were doing the right thing. I am sure of it.
You’ve convinced me not to vote for Bush, too.
Are you out of your fucking mind? Yes, definitely.
Anyone who sees our operations in Iraq as “resoundingly successful” either has their head buried up to their shoulders in the sand, or is completely daft. Iraq[sup]2[/sup] has been resoundingly nothing, neither successful, nor an utter failure. What is HAS been, however, is a resoundingly good excuse to continue to hate America and the west as a whole and here we are, with Tony Blair at the forefront of the shit.
There is a new proliferation of arms, and a proliferation of new terrorists and terror recruits. We’ve made NEW enemies. We’ve not won, nor have we really waged a war on, terror. America will be the resounding loser of the war on terror I fear, and I fear that not even a new president or totally new cast for Congress could save what Bush[sup]2[/sup] and our current congress have done.
Sam
Spoofe, I had initial read your “ sound and resoundingly successful campaign” as "sound and resourceful” and figured it was an acknowledgment that Senator Kerry was running a good and persuasive presidential election campaign. Now that SimonX, Squink and GaWd have responded, I see that I misread your post and had underestimated your ability to slip complete and (for me) unexpected balderdash into your post.
Let us consider this “sound and resoundingly successful campaign.” What was the objective of the invasion of Iraq – for I take it that is what you refer to? Was the objective to disarm Iraq? Disarm Iraq of what? Unconventional weapons? What unconventional weapons?
TWas it to free the people of Iraq from the heavy hand of Saddam’s tyranny? If so what have we substituted for that heavy hand? Apparently our own heavy hand complete with tortured and dead political prisoners. To bring the people of Iraq the blessings of democracy? Well, it is starting to look as if the blessings of democracy are doing the people of Iraq about as much good as the blessings of Christianity did for the Mexican Aztecs.
To stabilize the Middle East? Just how stable does the Middle East look to you? It is pretty apparent that Iraq is teetering on the verge of civil war, that Saudi Arabia is faced with a level of domestic violence that has not been seen there since the House of Saud took the place over. Is all calm in Afghanistan and Pakistan? We have not stabilize the Middle East. If anything our intrusion into the area has exacerbate the situation.
To suppress terrorist threats to the United States? That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? It is a hard idea to accept when on one hand we have our President saying his policies have made the country safer and on the other hand we have our President’s hand picked terror Tzar telling us that we are likely to get blowed up real good before the election. We certainly have an energized radical Islamic movement. Is that a good thing?
You can call the military campaign successful but to do so you must exclude from consideration every thing that happened after the first Third Infantry Division tank rolled into Baghdad. The invasion may have been a success but everything that has happened after that has been at best a highly qualified success that looks a lot like disjointed and ineffective responses to predicted situations; predictions that were largely disregarded by the President and his people. The one thing that the occupation had to do, and the first thing it had to do, was to establish civil order and establish public services. Even you Spoofe must concede, limited sovereignly provisional government notwithstanding, that those objectives have not yet been achieved and the probability of establishing order and services before the first Tuesday of November is slim indeed.
In the face of that where is the “sound and resoundingly successful campaign?” I suspect it is just as much a pipe dream and wishful thinking as the Mission Accomplished banner on the USS Abe Lincoln.
The serious question is what can a newly elected President Kerry do about the deepening quagmire that Iraq has become. The President’s answer seems to be to “stay the course.” In other words trust Mr Bush to muddle through in the hopes that something will turn up. How many more hundreds of America’s fighting men and women, how much more of the nation’s treasure, how much more of the nation’s dwindling supply of credibility are we expected to stuff down that rat hole?
Thanks for clearing that up. We were unsure where you stood.
To be fair, these weren’t goals of the invasion of Iraq.
Yet Bush has stated many times that nonproliferation is a major goal in the war on terror:
The administration’s flubbing of our nonproliferation goals in the battle for Iraq is merely one example of their flubbing of our nonproliferation goals in the more broadly defined war on terror.
Well, I didn’t know his position on Kerry.
I don’t normally do this, but SPOOFE, where are ya buddy? You can’t make hair-brained comments like that and disappear…
Call me crazy, but when yer fighting a war on terrorism, maybe you’d outa like, go try and catch the terrorists who bombed us instead of quickly losing interest and pulling the already insufficient attention and resources away from the struggle to track them down.
Bush called catching Osama his number 1 priority. A year later he was saying he didn’t know where Osama was and he doesn’t care: he’s not important. Everytime Bush brings up how right Iraq was, just remember how the resources, money, and lives we lost absolutely dwarf anything we did to try and catch the ACTUAL terrorists. If you understand that our invasion of Iraq was a gift to Al Qaeda, then it makes it even worse.
SPOOFE? SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFER? Where are ya bud?
Hey, it could be Mr. Ed vs Bush and Reeder’d go “Of course!”
Jesus, Spoofe, you’re kidding, right? You think that it’s just this by itself? (Forget the fact that it’s almost touching how you assume it was someone ELSE’s agenda that caused the “same evidence” to appear just so…some guy in the CIA, I’m sure, pushing his agenda on Bush without him having a clue. And poor Rove, and Condi, and Rummy and Wolf and Ashy…all dragged down the garden path by some brilliant unnamed mastermind determined to mislead them…)
SPOOFER, you are conspicuously absent in this thread, though I see you are not absent of the board with your involvement in another pit thread.
Why of why won’t you come on in and clarify your statements of earlier for us? We are all waiting with bated breath…